


Call to the Light

by lannisterslioness



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Catches up to The Force Awakens, Dark Side Rey, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Ghosts, Force Training, Force-Sensitive Leia Organa, Force-Sensitive Poe Dameron, Heavy Angst, Kylo Ren and Rey Are Related, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Rey Solo, Rey is trained by Kylo Ren, prepare for the feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-05-30 19:16:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6436975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannisterslioness/pseuds/lannisterslioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Many years ago, Rey was "saved" by her brother Ben from Jakku; he brought her into the Order and trained her himself along with Supreme Leader Snoke. But as Rey grows older, her dedication to The First Order begins to be tested, especially after feeling a bond to a Resistance pilot which eventually leads her to her parents that she was taught to resent. When her brother learns of this, Rey must make a choice - stay with the only family member who saved her, or join the parents who abandoned her?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dark Days

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Again, pretty sucky at summaries, but here we are! This is something I thought up on my own, it may come off as kind of similar to my other fic "Does This Darkness Have A Name?", but I promise you it's not, it's going to be much different, much darker, and a whole lot more angst and feels - sorry. Also I wanted to experiment a little bit with this fic, I wanted to test out writing Kylo Ren a bit as one of the main characters, and I also wanted to venture into the territory of what would happen if someone from the Dark Side, who has killed people, decided to join the Resistance? Would they be accepted? Would they be trusted? Even if it's the daughter of Han Solo and Leia Organa, would anyone believe their change of heart? I guess you guys will have to wait and see! ;)

**6 Years Ago**

 

    Life on Jakku was cruel to everyone who dared to live on the desert planet, and it seemed to be especially cruel to thirteen year old Rey. She’d been left on the planet for two years now, still holding out hope and waiting for the family she barely remembers to come and save her, though something deep in her gut told her they were never coming back. She made due with her new life, she learned to scavenge parts to survive and keep the things that were exactly trade worthy - such as an old Resistance pilot helmet, or rare desert flowers she found on occasion; she even made her own toys to keep her company, her favorite being a doll dressed as an X-Wing pilot, she hoped more than anything that one day a pilot would come and save her and take her far away from this horrible place. Rey dreamed of being taken somewhere with a ocean as far as the eye could see, somewhere that was nothing like Jakku. Tonight she held onto that dream as tightly as she hugged her favorite doll to her chest, darkness had fallen and despite the small fire she kept lit in her AT-AT makeshift home, nothing could drown out the creatures howling and growling in the night, mixed with the sounds of scavengers running from them and trying to scurry to their own homes away from the terrible things. She was afraid, Rey was always afraid of the complete darkness that set in on Jakku, and on nights like these when her stomach was rumbling and sleep eluded her, she was twice as terrified.

 

    But then something broke the howls and growls of the creatures in the dark, their menacing sounds turned to whimpers and then silence, the only sound being a crackling of light that was unfamiliar to Rey, and then that sounds too ceased in the night. Rey was tempted to get up from her bed and see what had caused the sudden silence, but as soon as three loud knocks hit her AT-AT, Rey pulled her knees closer to her chest, clutching her doll with one hand, and grabbing her nearby staff with the other. If it had been a scavenger looking to cause trouble, they would have simply walked in by now, and a creature wouldn’t have knocked at all, whoever it was at the door was civil and clearly not from the planet itself.

 

    “C-come in.” Rey’s tiny voice called out, still grasping her staff in case she had just invited trouble into her home.

 

    Slowly, a dark figure entered the AT-AT, ducking to walk in due to his height. He was covered in black robes, his hair just as black, though all the darkness contrasted against his pale skin and brown eyes. He wore no emotion on his face, he was neither happy nor sinister, and something about his presence made Rey ease herself slightly, he seemed familiar though she was sure she had never seen the man a day in her life. He wordlessly sat down by the entrance to the AT-AT so he wouldn’t have to hunch over in the vehicle anymore, and he reached to his waist to take off a strange item Rey had never seen before, laying it in front of him, it must have been a weapon she assumed, his way of showing her that he was no longer armed.

 

    “W-who are you?” Rey asked nervously, clutching her doll tighter, it was the only thing in the galaxy that made her feel truly safe.

 

    “I’ve been searching for you for a long time.” The stranger said, it should have made Rey afraid, but there was still that air of familiarity to him that put her at ease as he spoke. It was like a voice she had heard in a dream or a memory once, it was blurry and hard to remember, but something about it resonated with her, something told her to trust the stranger. “How long have you been here?”

 

    “Five years.” Rey responded, she kept track of the time on the walls of her AT-AT, all silver marks scratched into the metal, all the days she counted in hopes of someone finding her, and in that moment it felt as if she was finally being saved.

 

    “They sent you away so young, like me.” He stated, a mixture of disbelief and almost amusement crossing his features now. “I suppose they never learned how to deal with someone so different after all, they just sent you away out of fear like they did with me.”

 

    “Who are you talking about?” Rey asked, feeling a bit more brave with the strange man who seemed to know so much.

 

    “Our parents.” He stated simply, looking her right in the eye and Rey knew then and there that he wasn’t lying and that he was no stranger. This stranger was her family, someone who had been looking for her, _her brother had been looking for her_ , a brother she never knew she had. “They were cowards when I was born, and clearly when they found out you were just as strong, they did what they knew best and cast you away too.”

 

    “...Our parents sent me away?” Rey asked, her world felt like it was crashing down around her. Strangers had taken her and left her here, she hoped her parents would come back for her, but if they were the ones who sent her away in the first place...Rey wanted to cry and she felt the tears brimming up now.

 

    “Don’t cry, they’re not worth the tears.” The stranger stated. “What’s your name?”

 

    “Rey.” She sniffled, blinking her tears back, though her body was shaking with sadness and something else she couldn’t quite identify - it felt like anger but stronger than she’d ever felt before.

 

    “I’m K-” He stopped himself.

 

     _‘I used to be Ben.’_ Rey heard in her head, it came through as clear as his voice though his lips never moved. _‘I’m not Ben anymore, but our bond as siblings is strong, you’ll see once you’ve trained, and I want no lies between us’_

 

    Rey nodded, the voice in her head was so strange, but yet she identified it with the same familiarity she felt when he walked into her home, it came from the same source, it was just different.

 

    “Who are you now?” Rey asked.

 

    “My name is Kylo Ren.” He said. “I’ve been looking for you since the day I ran away from the exile our parents cast me out to. I knew you were out there, I could feel it in the Force, I couldn’t find you until now though, your fear was reaching out for someone, anyone, to come and save you.”

 

    “Are you taking me away?” Rey asked, feeling hope for the first time in five years, someone had heard her, her brother had heard her calling out through the Force - something she thought was just a myth - and he was here now, to take her away.

 

    “I am.” Kylo nodded. “You’re stronger than you think, I wasn’t the only one who felt you calling out, the person who saved me heard you too, and he would like to meet you. He wants to teach you how to control your powers just as he’s teaching me.”

 

    “So if I go with you, I don’t have to come back?” Rey asked, all she wanted more than anything in the galaxy was to escape Jakku with her family.

 

    “If you leave with me, you’ll never have to see this dreadful desert hell ever again.” Kylo promised her.

 

    Rey slowly rose from her bed, her doll and staff still in hand, as she made her way across her makeshift home to Kylo. She hesitated briefly before thrusting her arms around him and embracing him in a tight hug. He stiffened under this sudden embrace, Rey could tell that he wasn't used to it, but after a moment one of his hands wrapped around her and gave her a small squeeze. He let go of her rather quickly, and Rey took it as a sign to pull herself away, though she wanted to hold on just a bit longer. Kylo rose to his feet, hunching over in the small space, and grabbing the weapon he had laid on the floor before taking a step outside.

 

    “Grab whatever you have here and let’s go.” His voice was back to being stern and somewhat cold, but Rey could feel that it was only a matter of business, that was how Kylo Ren was.

 

    Rey still had her staff and doll in hand, it was all she truly cared for in this place except for one other item. She ran to her shelf and grabbed her pilot helmet, still too big for her to wear and see out of, but something she cherished, something that kept her company in these lonely years. When Rey walked out with her belongings, Kylo stared at her for a moment, particularly the helmet.

 

    “Where we’re going, people won’t like that helmet, or the doll for that matter.” Kylo stated.

 

    “They’re all I have.” Rey felt a sharp pain at her heart, these were the only things she had to her name, and the thought of leaving them behind would have been too much.

 

    Kylo sighed, he looked out over the dark sand dunes, searching for something she couldn’t see, before turning back to her.

 

    “Keep them hidden then. They’ll let you have them for now, but once you start training, you can’t have them. If you want them, keep them out of sight.” Kylo told her, there was something in his voice again, wavering from the cold tone it normally held to something human and caring, something that could resemble a family member that cared.

 

    Rey nodded and held on to her belongings tightly, sparing one last glance at her AT-AT home before following Kylo’s lead. It was during her walk through the dark desert that she noticed what silenced the creatures outside her home, all of them were flayed and covered in burns, something that could only come from what Rey realized Kylo had at his hip - a lightsaber.

 

* * *

 

 

**3 Years Later**

 

     _Breha Organa-Solo_. She learned that was her name as soon as she met Leader Snoke, he told her about her family, how they were cowards afraid of her as soon as she showed signs of the Force, how they knew Luke Skywalker, her Uncle, couldn’t control Ben and instead of taking chances, they cast her out to Jakku. They couldn’t even do it themselves and had Resistance pilots bring her there and leave her behind to Unkar Plutt. She felt so angry when she learned all of this, she had never been so angry before, and Leader Snoke had told her to embrace that anger, to harness it just as her brother had, and together her and Kylo Ren would eliminate the Resistance for good, letting their parents see what their foolishness had done. Rey rejected her full name, she didn’t want it after knowing what her parents had done, and simply stayed with Rey as she began her training.

 

    At first it was just her and Leader Snoke, he taught her to meditate and focus her hatred, he taught her how to infiltrate minds, how to bend people to her will, the basics of the Force. A year later, he had her craft her own lightsaber - it was doubled edged to match the comfort of her staff, and it’s violent red flares matched her brothers, only proving not only how strong their bond was, but how they shared the same pain and anger for what was done to them. When she had her lightsaber, Snoke had her and Ben train in combat together, to try and block each other out of their minds which proved to be a true task given their bond from the moment Rey was born. And it was with Ben one day a year into her combat training that she discovered her ultimate Force power.

 

    She was just trying to hold him at a distance, but then she felt something snake up her arm that felt like electricity though nothing was there. She saw Ben gasping for air, she thought she was choking him though Snoke ordered her to keep going, when he started to go limp and she felt barely anything left in him, Rey stopped, Ben crumpling to the floor and Rey running to his side in panic.

 

     _“You were draining his power from him.” Snoke said with a cruel grin on his face. “I haven’t seen such a power in a long time. You are very powerful Rey.”_

 

_“What about Kylo, is he alright?” Rey asked, she could still feel him faintly through their bond, but there was no anger, instead all she felt was what she could describe as pride coming from him as he teetered on the brink of unconsciousness._

 

_“Your brother will live another day. You can give him back enough power to wake up.” Snoke said with a wave of his hand, almost dismissively as if he truly didn’t care whether she did so or not._

 

 _Rey had grabbed his hand and closed her eyes, meditating almost, and when she felt some of the electricity leave her, feeling a bit tired now herself, she knew it worked. When she opened her eyes Kylo was trying to sit up, letting go of her hand, and a hint of a smile on his face - he was actually proud of her despite her almost killing him_.

 

    Rey never used that power on her brother again, but he had ordered her to use it to her full extent on others, and she had watched the life drain out of three people so far at Kylo and Snoke’s orders. She was sixteen now though, at a crucial point in her training according to both her brother and Snoke, a time when she would truly be tested by the Force. To test it, Snoke ordered her out on a mission by herself - he was sending her to Tatooine, a planet where much of her family history was rooted - both in darkness and light. There were whispers of Republic soldiers and pilots on the planet, trying to establish some peace on the rocky outer rim planet, and it was Rey’s job to ensure that the Republic suffered a grave loss.

 

    Twenty soldiers, five pilots; it would be beneficial if all of them died, though a few escaping to spread whispers of the growing power of The First Order would suffice as well. Rey waited by her shuttle, it had been deemed hers only this morning as a present of sorts, a Upsilon-class command shuttle that would carry her and ten troopers down to Tatooine. Snoke knew her power, he knew she could easily kill ten of the soldiers within five minutes of her setting foot on the surface of the planet, the ten troopers were more for show.

 

    Rey resembled her brother now, back when he had found her on Jakku; she still wore her hair in the three buns, but she was dressed all in black robes made to resemble something that her old outfit on Jakku had been, her lightsaber at her hip, and her freckles were now faint from spending so much time in space, not being brought out by the hot sun. Kylo had changed however, he wore a mask now though he had nothing to hide, he said it was to honor their grandfather - Darth Vader - and his intention was to spread fear into others, it seemed to work on everyone on the base, but Rey knew her brother beneath that mask and never even flinched when he approached her in it outside of their own quarters.

 

    “It’d be best to kill them all.” Kylo stated, his voice changed from the mask, giving it something that was made to sound like Vader.

 

    “Snoke said he wants at least one to live.” Rey said. “To go running back to the Republic with their tail between their legs.”

 

    “Do what you must.” Kylo said in almost a dismissive tone, but she felt a tug at the back of her mind and knew he was trying to tell her something through their bond. _‘Don’t let them get to you.’_

 

    Rey just nodded, when the troopers approached her brother turned and left, they boarded the shuttle first and she walked aboard. When the door closed and the ship rose for take off, Rey felt something in her waver, _a pull to the light_ as her brother would call it, something that wanted to test her. Rey tried to push it down, to deny it was there, but it remained and Rey knew it could only mean one thing - there was someone who kept to the Light in the Force on Tatooine, and she would have to kill them.

 

* * *

 

  


    They set a village ablaze, there were innocent villagers screaming, and all their screams resonated with something inside Rey that made her panic, it was becoming slowly harder to breath, but she killed whoever came in her path and tried to harm her - mostly the Republic soldiers. Then she someone with a droid at their heels running for one of the Republic X-Wings, the troopers didn’t notice, and Rey prefered to be anywhere other than trapped in the smoke and smell of death all around her. She charged towards the pilot, catching up with him easily and knocking him down, holding her lightsaber just above his neck, and unlike the others he didn’t look afraid. His BB unit was squeaking and beeping in terror, but the pilot never wavered, he just stared right at her, and Rey felt the Light reaching out to her. He was what she felt aboard the shuttle, he wasn’t very powerful with the Force, he probably didn’t even know he had it, but his dedication to the Republic made him the source of light she felt, and that’s what made her hesitate.

 

    “So you’re her.” He stated, unafraid to speak beneath her. “The one they talk about, the one that works with Kylo Ren.”

 

    “I have a name.” She snapped.

 

    “I know, Rey.” He said, he wasn’t afraid to speak her name either, he just chose not to until she addressed it. “If you’re going to kill me, I suggest you do it before your buddies over there notice.”

 

    It snapped Rey back to reality - she worked for The First Order, this pilot worked for the Republic - she should have killed him. But instead she turned off her lightsaber, and his BB unit beeped in curiosity as she rose up off of him, she even offered him a hand up off the ground. He took it hesitantly, and both of them kept their eyes locked on the other the entire time. She felt something she never felt before, a pull past the dark and the light, a pull she couldn’t even compare to anything else.

 

    “Just...just go.” She said, letting go of his hand instantly now, as if he were made of lava.

 

    “You don’t want to kill for them.” His voice was barely a whisper, and it was then Rey realized the scratching in the back of her mind that she instantly shut out. He saw a glimpse of her mind, something she should have kept on guard at all time, but he made her weak...why?

 

    “ _Go_.” Rey snapped now, a sternness in her glare that she hoped he picked up on.

 

    “Come on, BB-8.” He said, never flinching away from her glare, but the droid obeyed and got in position to leave in the ship. “You don’t have to fight for them.” He whispered. Why did a Republic pilot who just watched her kill some of his comrades care so much about what choices she had?

 

    “They saved me, I owe them my life.” Rey responded, it was what Kylo had instilled in her mind, Snoke had done the same - they saved her from a life of exile, now she owed them her life. “What do you care?” She snapped again.

 

    “Because...I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I just feel that way.”

 

    “Save yourself the trouble and flee before I have to kill you in front of them.” Rey hissed.

 

    He wanted to protest some more, but he saw the seriousness in her eyes and gave a curt nod before heading towards his ship. Once he took off, Rey turned to face the chaos, one of the Stormtroopers charging towards her.

 

    “Why did you let him escape?” The trooper questioned.

 

    “Snoke’s orders.” Rey barked.

 

   “But-”

 

    Rey raised her hand and held the trooper up off the ground, she could hear him choking and gurgling, clawing at his neck to try and escape the invisible force.

 

    “Do not question me or my methods ever again.” She snarled, letting him drop to the ground, the other troopers standing in silence by the command shuttle, she could feel their fear.

 

    “The other Republic soldiers and pilots are eliminated.” One of them stated.

 

    “Good, take care of their ships and let’s leave.” Rey said.

  
    The troopers went to work blasting the X-Wings until they exploded, and while Rey sat aboard the shuttle, all she could think about was the pilot she spared, the one who looked right at her - not through her - and wasn’t afraid. The one who saw what she kept buried from her brother and Snoke, she tried to hide her pull towards the light, and he saw it without even trying because she let her walls down to him. This life was all she knew, her hatred and anger were all she knew how to control, and after just a few words she wanted to believe the pilot, she wanted to believe that she had a choice. If she left, Snoke would kill her, or worse, have her brother kill her, she had no real choice, she had to wipe away these doubts; and yet on the entire flight back to the base, the pilot with the dark curly hair and deep brown eyes was all she could think about.


	2. Family Ties

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So I wrote this chapter last week I think? I was gonna wait until tomorrow to post it but I figured why not since I had the next chapter written already and it's almost 4,000 words long, so be ready for that one! Until I get that one posted, enjoy this chapter ;)

    Snoke kept talking, he talked and talked, but Rey heard none of it. The pilot haunted her memory still, he was able to get in her head so easily while not even her own brother could see whatever he wanted despite their bond. She figured it was because she was careless, she was caught up in the moment of her first solo mission, she let her walls down - 

 

    “Rey.” Snoke’s ancient voice pierced through her thoughts and caused her to look up at the hologram looking down at her. “Your mind is elsewhere, what seems to be the issue?” 

 

    Rey gathered her thoughts, she remembered all the training Snoke put her through, the years of him raking through her mind, tearing every one of her thoughts apart while she cried and screamed. She had learned to fight him off, but he was still powerful enough to make her suffer if he detected a lie. 

 

    “I’m sorry Supreme Leader, I’m just tired is all. It won’t happen again.” Rey quickly stated, lowering her gaze and hoping Snoke wouldn’t investigate further. 

 

    Snoke held his gaze on her, studying her intently until he was satisfied with her answer, not wishing to pry further. 

 

    “Send your brother in, I wish to speak to him.” Snoke gave her a wave of his hand to dismiss her, Rey running quickly out of the room and bumping into her brother in the process. 

 

    “Sorry.” Rey mumbled, walking past him without another word, but feeling the familiar scratch at the back of her head, telling her Kylo was trying to see what was going through her mind. 

 

    She felt him in her head, poking around until she reached her quarters and pushed him out of her head, seeking solace by locking her in her room and focusing all her energy on meditating, hoping to not only push her brother out, but the pilot as well. 

 

* * *

  
  


    When Rey was first left on Jakku, she always dreamed that a pilot would be the one to save her, that they would swoop in and take her back to her parents and leave the harsh desert world behind. She knew it was foolish even back then to think up something like that, but it gave her hope when all else seemed hopeless - it was that very hope that caused her to make the doll that she still held onto. She kept it in one of the drawers of her nightstand, reaching out to it every night out of habit from the years before her brother saved her, the doll was her security blanket and whenever she felt scared or lost, just the mere sight of it calmed her. Kylo knew she still had it, even after all these years and the many warnings he gave her to dispose of it since it was dressed as a pilot from the Resistance, but she still kept it, and he seemed to pretend that it was gone, allowing her to keep it. 

 

    She scrambled to her feet as soon as she heard her doors open, Rey tossed the doll on her bed and scurried out of her room, meeting her brother in the living space just as the doors shut and he cast his helmet aside. Few people got to see him without his mask anymore, he used it as a tool to instill fear, to hide his real emotions from those who were without the Force, but Rey and him shared a promise from the moment she left Jakku with him - no lies between them - and wearing the helmet seemed pointless around her. Rey could feel anger radiating off of him though his face remained calm, and when his eyes met hers, she felt the rage practically pierce through her. She was used to her brother's anger, he had always been so terrifyingly angry, but this anger she could tell was directed and caused because of her. 

 

    “Snoke said that you were distracted in your meeting.” He began, step by step inching closer to her, his anger getting more intense with every step. “What’s on your mind that you are so desperately hiding, Rey?” 

 

    “Nothing.” Rey replied immediately. She regretted that answer as soon as he used the Force and dragged her into his grasp. 

 

    “I don’t like when I’m being lied to.” He was snarling through clenched teeth, it was a sight Rey used to fear but now used that fear as her own power. She pushed his power off of her and freed herself from his grasp, still feeling the ghost of his hand around her throat. 

 

    “I’m not lying to you. Nothing happened on Tatooine. Snoke wanted a soldier from the Republic to live, I let one go, that’s all there is to it.” Rey snapped, letting Kylo see what she wanted him to see in that blocked memory before shoving it away in her mind again, his anger simmering down and though he showed no remorse on his face for his actions, Rey could feel a twinge of it in their bond. 

 

    He froze when he looked through the open doorway to her room, seeing the familiar doll in the middle of her bed. 

 

    “A pilot.” He scoffed, flickers of her memory in his head now. “You always wanted a pilot to save you, and instead you saved him.” 

 

    “Everyone else was dead.” Rey buried her emotions, just as he taught her, not letting him know just how deeply the simple pilot from Tatooine had gotten under her skin. “He was the only one left.” 

 

    Kylo’s gaze flickered over to her again for a moment before he turned his back on her entirely, taking strides back towards his helmet. 

 

    “We have training in the morning, get some rest.” He said.  _ ‘You did a good job sister, I’m proud of you.’ _ His voice came through clear as a bell in her mind, catching her off guard though she should have been used to it by now; her brother acted so cold to her when speaking, but in their bond he praised her with kinder words, though he’d never told her that he was proud of her before. 

 

    His words should have eased her mind, they should have let her jump right into bed and fall asleep with a smile on her face knowing that she had finally done something right in her brothers eyes. Instead when he left, Rey was left with nothing but a conflicted feeling in her gut, her brother's words ringing through her mind, but the words of the pilot telling her she didn’t have to keep fighting for the Order weighed heavily on her heart. She wondered if Kylo felt this way in his time alone, if he ever thought about turning to the Light, of undoing all he’s done. If he did, he never showed it, not even to her, and it only made Rey worry more that his pride in her would soon fade to disappointment if this confliction within her pulled her towards the Light. 

 

* * *

 

**1 Year Later**

 

    Rey had never seen a picture of her parents before; what memories she had of them were fuzzy at best, and from the few stories she’d heard of them, she could sort of piece together what the great Han Solo and Leia Organa looked like. Han Solo had bright blue eyes, was fairly tall, some people even went so far to say that he was handsome and had a boyish charm about him. Leia was said to be beautiful, brown eyes and long brown hair that she always wore in intricate braids that marked her upbringing in Alderaan, she was also said to be feisty and stubborn and far more than just a Princess. They were said to be great war heroes, though winning a war was far different from raising a family, and trying to piece together the New Republic from the ashes of the old one was incredibly taxing on the both of them. 

 

    It took some digging to say the least for Rey to find anything with her parent’s faces on it, and being trapped on the Starkiller base with Snoke and Kylo intently watching her only made things harder. But Rey found a way, befriending a Stormtrooper who was currently stuck in sanitation named FN-2187. 

 

    “E-Excuse me, Ma’am.” His voice was shaky as he entered the training arena, this one in particular had been for just Kylo and Rey themselves, she could only imagine how nervous and out of place he felt in here, especially with them dealing in something almost everyone in the base would look down upon. 

 

    “Do you have it?” Rey asked, she’d been waiting on edge nearly all day, trying to burn off her energy by training, but still thinking about it. 

 

    FN-2187 nervously reached for his belt, pulling out a small holo disk, and with the push of a button, Rey watched as her parents came to life in front of her very eyes. They were young in the holo, probably shortly after they had won the war, maybe even before Ben was born, and they looked so  _ happy _ . Han was smiling, his arm wrapped around Leia, his eyes lit up when she got up on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek - he loved her so deeply and clearly that it was heartwarming. Leia was radiant, she could even see some similarities between her and her mother, she could understand now why people whispered how she looked like her mother, though she hadn’t understood yet why people said she resembled her grandmother as well. He held the holo disk out to her and Rey took it carefully, as if it had been the most fragile thing in the world; she watched the holo a few more times before she turned it off and stuffed it in her bag in the other corner of the room. 

 

    “Thank you.” Rey practically whispered, she could feel some emotion bubbling up in her, but she would be damned if she let herself cry in front of a trooper. 

 

    “And Ma’am, about the pilot...the one you asked me to listen for.” FN-2187 continued. “There’s word traveling around that he’s joined the Resistance, with your mother. And his name is Poe Dameron.” 

 

    Rey had almost forgotten that she asked FN-2187 to listen for news on her mysterious pilot as well, the one that she hadn’t stopped thinking about despite it being a year since she saw him. But now she finally knew his name - Poe Dameron - it suited him as she tried to remember what he looked like; dark brown curls, brown eyes that had a certain spark to them, olive skin that was marked with scars from battle. She struggled to remember the people who raised her, but she could recall the pilot she briefly encountered in great detail, it was something she was sure she would never understand. 

 

    “Thank you.” Rey said again, giving the trooper a slight nod and dismissing him from the arena. 

 

    Rey still thought about the pilot who was unafraid to speak to her, unafraid of dying at her hands; she couldn’t help but wonder if Poe still thought about her too. 

 

* * *

  
  


     Poe studied her face just about every waking hour of the day, as part of the Resistance now he had to know who he was fighting - Rey was one of them. The picture someone had captured while on a recon mission didn’t do her justice, she  was standing beside her brother - Kylo Ren - and it made her look so small and fraile while in actuality she was fierce and strong. She could have killed him that day on Tatooine, she could have shoved her lightsaber through his chest and ended it all, but she didn’t, she hesitated in a way he had never seen someone from the First Order hesitate before. They usually operated with such certainty in what they were doing, to have someone so high up on their food chain have enough doubt to spare his life was something that couldn’t be ignored. He felt a pull towards her, he could see glimpses of doubt inside her head, despite all she was made to do, she didn’t believe in what she was doing, she knew it was wrong. The Resistance was terrified of her and Kylo Ren, except for Leia Organa who just remained silent when the topic came up of her two wayward children. Poe knew there was something in Rey that could be reached, a light buried deep within her and burning in her blood. 

  
    He wanted to say it was just the light he saw in her that made him want to just set her aside from the Order for a while and see her make her own choices. But it was something else as well, something in the way she looked at him that night, the way she not only spared him but his droid companion BB-8. Poe felt drawn to her in a way he’d never been drawn to someone before, he was like a foolish moth flying headfirst into a fire whenever he thought of her, but something in his gut told him that she was worth it.


	3. Loyalty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is the super long chapter that I promised, even after I went back in and tweaked a few things here and there, it's still almost 4,000 words long so I hope you guys are ready to read all of that! I really like this chapter, and I've got some ideas that I actually like for the next few chapters and I can't wait to get in there are write them!

**Two Years Later**

 

    The General wanted to speak with Poe and whenever she called him to meet her in her quarters, it usually meant that she was giving him a mission she trusted with no one but him. He’d been on a few other secret missions for the General, and he’d had a couple of close calls with the First Order as well on those missions, but despite the three years he’d been with the Resistance, he’d never seen Rey again, though he knew she was still out there. He’d seen the reports, he’d heard the stories of all that Rey has done since the last time he saw her, but despite the years he still couldn’t shake the connection he made with her - and he couldn’t shake the feeling that despite all she’s done over the years that she could still be redeemed. But no one believed more than Leia, and Poe never pieced that together until the day Poe saw he watching an old holo. 

 

    It was back when she was younger, Han was still at her side, and their son Ben was about ten years old, around the time they were preparing to ship him off to Luke. In Leia’s arms had been a little baby girl, wrapped up in blankets with a full head of brown hair sticking out, her little hands reaching up and grabbing for Leia. Leia had been so young when her and Han had Ben, she confessed she never thought she would have kids that young when he came along, which was why there was such an age difference between him and the little girl she called Breha, through her and Han had given her the nickname of Rey. He had heard whispers before that the dark siblings were the children of Han Solo and Leia Organa, but Poe didn’t believe it until he saw Leia watching that holo, and he slowly pieced together why she never put orders out to kill them - to her they would always be her children, and in her eyes they always had a chance to be redeemed. 

 

    Today however, Leia was strictly business, she was barking out orders at the people who were in the room before Poe entered, the soldiers leaving and clearly set on a mission. When Poe walked in he could feel the stress radiating off of the General, more stress than she usually harbored at least. 

 

    “What did you want to talk to me about, General?” Poe asked. 

 

    Leia looked up from holo on her desk, a sigh of relief let out once she realized it was Poe. 

 

    “Poe, we finally have a lead on Luke.” Leia stated. 

 

    The Resistance had been looking for Luke since the beginning of the war, Luke had vanished and left no map behind, though there were rumors that the First Order already had a part of that map. Leia was focused on finding her brother, and after hearing this, Poe knew what his mission was before she told him the specifics. 

 

    “I have an old friend on Jakku, Lor San Tekka, he says he has the map that leads to Luke. I don’t know how he got it and I don’t care, but there’s only one pilot in this whole base that I trust to go get that map and that’s you, Poe.” Leia explained. “I know Jakku is a long trip, but we need to find Luke.” 

 

    “I’ll go get that map, General.” Poe said, thinking the mission brief was over and he was free to leave. 

 

    “This is different though Poe.” Leia sighed. “Because of how far out Jakku is, and how much danger you’ll be flying in to with the First Order out there and more than likely hearing the same news about the map...we won’t be able to get you if they capture you. We don’t have the manpower, after that last attack out by Naboo, we can’t afford to lose anymore people on rescue missions. I’m sorry.” 

 

    “I understand, I knew I’d get missions like this the day I signed up.” Poe shrugged. He didn’t worry about dying, not really, it was part of his job and every mission he went out on there was always the high risk that it just might be his last, best pilot in the Resistance or not, everyone died eventually. For Leia to be telling him this directly though, he knew there was a very high risk that he wouldn’t be coming back, but he had to try and get that map before the Order got their hands on it; if Luke died, the Resistance and galaxy were done for. 

 

    “You’ve always been a good soldier Poe, your parents would be proud.” Leia gave him a small smile while there was some sorrow reflecting in her eyes now. “You leave tonight, and I know you’d usually want to leave Beebee-Ate behind on risky missions like this but, if your ship gets destroyed and you manage to stay out of the Orders hands, it’d be best if you had a way of communicating with us.”  

 

    “Well, at least he’ll be happy about coming out there with me.” Poe said with a smirk; his little droid was so loyal that he always wanted to follow Poe out on the risky missions, no matter how high a chance there was for him to get destroyed, he wanted to stay with Poe. 

 

    “I’m sure he will be.” Leia gave a slight laugh. “Go on and enjoy the rest of the day, after the sun sets I need you to go after that map.” 

 

* * *

  
  


    The Star Destroyer Rey had been aboard was in chaos nearly the entire day, Stormtroopers were being scattered everywhere across the ship and being launched out onto shuttles. She didn’t know where they were going, and quite frankly she didn’t care, all she knew was that a handful of troopers, herself, and her brother were going to Jakku tonight in order to retrieve a piece of the map that would lead them straight to Luke Skywalker. Kylo was having some last minute words with Supreme Leader Snoke which gave Rey some much needed time to herself to meditate and sort out her thoughts. She hadn’t been able to have time to herself for a while, Kylo keeping a close eye on her after reports of her sparing innocent lives began to get to him. Rey sat in the middle of her bed, her doll from Jakku that she still held on to at her side, and she tried to let all of her muscles relax as she cleared her mind. 

 

    It wasn’t unusual for visions to sometimes come through while Rey meditated, she’d had a fair share of them over the years. But the one that came rushing to her now was sudden and violent, for the first time in nearly ten years, she was completely swept up into the intensity of a vision, having no control or hold on it, making her feel as if she were right there in the middle of it. 

 

    At first she was sitting in a darkened hutt, something that would have been somewhere on Jakku. There was an aging old man handing a small black bag to a younger man sitting across from him, it took Rey a few minutes to realize that the younger man was the pilot, Poe Dameron. They were about to speak when the environment shifted, suddenly she was outside with Poe, and it was then she realized it was on Jakku, him looking out to some light in the distance and his little round droid beeping at his side. 

 

_ “You need to go.” Poe said, turning to face the old man behind him.  _

 

_     “You need to leave.” The man answered.  _

 

    Everything shifted again, this time the village was being attacked by Stormtroopers, buildings being set ablaze and screams piercing the night. She was ducking behind something, and now Poe was talking directly to her; Rey pieced it together then that this was a vision of what was going to happen tonight, and Poe was the Resistance pilot sent to get the map. 

 

_ “What are you doing?” He asked her.  _

 

_     Rey was holding out her hand, using the Force to hold some Stormtrooper and their blast that was aimed right at Poe in place, she was...saving him? Again?  _

 

    The last violent flash that came through was of Rey being held by her brothers power in place, she noticed a Stormtrooper with blood on his helmet out of the corner of her eye, watching them closely and seeming almost torn on helping her. Beside her was Poe, kneeling down on the ground and looking so angry, yelling something she couldn’t quite here at Kylo. 

 

_ ‘You saved this pilot again,’ Her brothers thoughts pierced into her mind. ‘I cannot allow that kind of disobedience, not anymore. I’ll have to teach you just whose side you are on again.’ _

 

    Rey came out of her vision, gasping for air and shaking, the intensity of it all getting the best of her. She grabbed her doll and hugged it close to her chest, it was the only thing that brought her true peace anymore and calmed her mind. After a few moments when Rey evened out her breathing, she put the doll down and tried to sort out why she got the vision in the first place. Usually her visions showed her what needed to happen, but why did she need to save Poe? Why was the Force telling her to save this man? For that matter, why did the Force seem to bond her to someone who fought on the opposite side in the middle of this war? Why was Poe Dameron so important? 

 

    She was almost tempted to ask Kylo if she could stay on the ship, but in doing that, it would change her vision, that Stormtrooper just might blast Poe into oblivion, and the mere thought of that made Rey anxious. She had to go to Jakku, she had to save the Resistance pilot again, and she had to somehow try and change it so that her brother wouldn’t capture them; the anger she sensed in Kylo was deadly and he would surely kill Poe if given the chance to. Rey had to stop that, for some reason Poe Dameron had to live, and she was the one who had to make sure that he did. 

 

* * *

  
  


    The village was ablaze, and all Rey could concentrate on was finding Poe Dameron, who she hadn’t seen yet in all the chaos. People were screaming and begging for their lives, others were fighting and shooting to the last minute, some even daring to shoot at her which she all easily deflected with her lightsaber. She finally spotted him, ducking behind sand dunes on the edge of the village and his blaster aimed out at the chaos, he hadn’t even spotted her yet thankfully. Rey tried to blend into the chaos as she made her way over to him, nearly being caught a few times before she was greeted by the muzzle of his blaster aimed right at her. He held it there for a minute, his brown eyes twinged with a bit of fear, before he registered who it was standing in front of him. Rey deactivated her lightsaber just as Poe lowered his blaster; they were enemies in basic terms, and yet whatever bond they had prevented them from killing one another. 

 

    “It’s you.” He stated first, still in shock at seeing her right in front of him. 

 

    “I’d love to catch up, but you need to leave.” Rey insisted. 

 

    “W-why are you helping? Do you know why you’re here? Do you remember who I am?” Poe pried. 

 

    “We’re here for the same thing you’re here for, the map to Luke Skywalker. I know you have the piece we need, and yes, I know you work with the Resistance; all of that is exactly why I’m telling you to leave and get out of here while you still can.” Rey hissed. 

 

    “I can’t, your troopers blew up the engines on my X-Wing.” Poe grumbled. “You know, you never said why you’re helping me.” 

 

    “I’m not helping I’m just...warning.” Rey knew it was a weak excuse at best, but she didn’t have the time or patience to explain it all right now. “Look, you need to go. The closest place you can get a ship is Niima Outpost, and by get I mean steal, but you need to get that piece back to the Resistance before my brother gets it.” 

 

    Before Poe could answer, there was the familiar sound of a blaster being shot in their direction, and Rey immediately grabbed the blast mid-air and held it for a moment, a part of her vision coming to light, only she sent the blast back to the trooper who shot it, sending him collapsing to the ground. That was the first Stormtrooper she ever killed, and it was to save Poe Dameron. 

 

    “GO!” Rey shouted. 

 

    Poe started to run off, shooting at whoever got to him, and it was then that Rey noticed unlike the visions, Poe’s droid was missing. Before she could wonder where it went, she felt her brothers power grab her, and she looked up to see he had done the same to Poe who had started shooting at him, along with the body of the old man she had seen in her vision crumpled on the ground - dead. He used the Force to pull Rey towards him against her will while Stormtroopers went and dragged Poe over to him. 

 

    “You killed one of our own,  _ for a Resistance pilot? _ ” Kylo’s modified voice hissed through the helmet, Rey could feel her brothers anger and rage coursing through her, she knew she wouldn’t be able to talk her way out of this. 

 

    “That’s one hell of a way to treat your sister, buddy.” Poe yelled up at Kylo Ren. 

 

    Once Poe was kicked down to be kneeling in front of her brother, Kylo studied his face before focusing back on her again. 

 

_ ‘You saved this pilot again,’  _ He hissed at her into her mind. _ ‘I cannot allow that kind of disobedience, not anymore. I’ll have to teach you just whose side you are on again.’ _

 

    He released her from his hold and she collapsed to her feet beside Poe, noticing the bloodstained Stormtrooper watching them at a distance, still holding the stance of indecisiveness, torn between disobeying and holding his ground. Kylo kneeled down and stared right at Poe, Rey could tell he was searching him for signs of the map, but Poe must have put up a fight since he pulled back a few moments later. 

 

    “So...who talks first? You talk first?” Poe asked, snark evident in his voice, and Rey wondered how he could be confident enough to do so given the situation he was in. 

 

    “Bring him with us.” Kylo stated, rising back to his feet and not even caring to acknowledge Poe’s comment. “He knows where the map is.” 

 

    Stormtroopers moved to grab Poe and drag him into this ship, and as they did so Kylo shifted his attention to Rey, still kneeling on the ground below him. 

 

    “Phasma.” Kylo called out. 

 

    “Yes, sir?” The silver stormtrooper answered. 

 

    “Put my sister through the same reconditioning you put your troops through. She needs to remember who she is fighting for.” Kylo said. 

 

    Rey watched Phasma hesitate for a moment, Rey had dealt her fair share of blows to Phasma in the past and vice versa, the two were always at odds. But Rey had the upper hand, she could sense that she was one of the few people in the galaxy that Phasma feared, ever since the day Rey nearly drained the life out of her with a flick of her wrist, she feared that power being unleashed on her again. 

 

    “If she fights back, I’ll handle her myself.” Kylo added. 

 

    That reassurance made Phasma’s body language change. “Yes, sir.” She answered, grabbing Rey by the arm and pushing her ahead of her, guiding her back to the shuttle. 

 

* * *

  
  


    Nearly every part of Rey was screaming out in pain, Phasma’s reconditioning was not pleasant, in fact, it involved Phasma literally beating the purpose of the First Order into her by delivering a powerful blow wherever it hurt the most when Rey refused to conform or just simply took up an attitude with Phasma. She could have used the Force on Phasma, she could have drained all of her energy this time and just left her there to die, but Rey’s thoughts were too scattered to concentrate on anything, and the fact that her head was throbbing from a few punches only made it worse. The last blow was right to Rey’s jaw, blood rushing to her mouth and filling it with the metallic taste of iron. 

 

    “I have to admire you for the fact that you refuse to give up.” Phasma stated. 

 

    Rey felt a surge of spite as Phasma drew closer and lifted her head up to spit the blood right at Phasma’s helmet, staining the silver sheen. 

 

    “Go to hell.” Rey hissed. 

 

    She felt a wave of Phasma’s anger then, the captain taking off her helmet and dropping it to the ground, revealing the person rarely seen underneath, her eyes filled with hatred. Phasma was ready to deliver another blow to Rey right as the door opened and she froze in place. She bent down to grab her helmet and put it back on before turning to see who had walked into the room. 

 

    “Sir?” She questioned as her brother came into view. 

 

   “I’d like to have a word with my sister.” Kylo stated. 

 

    “Of course, sir.” Phasma replied and walked out of the room without another word. 

 

    “Is this really all reconditioning is? Throwing punches until a trooper caves?” Rey asked with a bit of a smirk, she was so numb now she didn’t care what rage her brother threw her way. 

 

    Kylo took his helmet off and set it to the side, his cold demeanor sending a chill down Rey’s spine, she had never seen her brother so furious with her before. Then again, she had never killed one of their own before, especially out in battle. 

 

    “Do you realize what you’ve done?” His voice was low and terrifying, only making Rey want to draw up into herself even more. “You killed one of our own in battle, you saved a Resistance pilot,  _ the same pilot as before _ . Snoke is questioning not only your loyalty but mine now as well for being unable to control you, if you step out of line again he’ll have me kill you.” 

 

    “Would you?” Rey asked curiously. “If he told you to kill me, would you do it Ben?” 

 

    Rey only ever called him Ben while they were alone, and even then it was rare, it was something she used to remind him that they were siblings, Kylo Ren wasn’t her brother - Ben was. Sometimes it invoked anger in him, other times like now, it brought a certain softness to him, he wasn’t as far gone as he led everyone to believe. He had confided in her on more than one occasion that he felt a pull sometimes, telling him to head back towards the light, something she was all too familiar with. His dark eyes held her hazel ones for a few more moments until he dropped his gaze from her, not wanting to say the answer out loud. 

 

    “Say it.” Rey hissed. 

 

    “No.” Ben stated. “I wouldn’t.” 

 

    She had to admit that she was almost surprised with her brothers answer, despite everything she always assumed he would, but she felt the falter in his anger and knew he was speaking the truth. They were siblings at the end of the day, brother and sister bound by blood; they had trained together, grown together, even the dark influence of Snoke couldn’t make him kill his sister in cold blood. 

 

    “Don’t use that as an excuse to do what you please.” He said. “I still expect you to change, you can’t keep having outbursts like this, and you still have a loyalty to prove.” Ben reached over to start releasing her from the restraints that held her in the chair. 

 

    “What do you want me to do?” Rey asked. 

 

    “Nothing right now.” Ben sighed as he went to unchain Rey from her restraints. “Just go rest, you need to heal.” 

 

    As soon as Rey was free from her restraints, she felt the pain from all the punches Phasma dealt to her finally set in. She just wanted to curl up in bed and sleep for the next few days, she would just draw from the energy around her and try to help her heal a bit faster, but she knew pain like this would last for a while. 

 

    “What are you going to do?” Rey asked, watching her brother pick up his helmet and put it back on again, Ben vanishing and being replaced by the anger and hatred that created Kylo Ren. 

 

    “Don’t worry about that, go rest.” He stated. 

  
    When Rey felt Ben shut his mind off from her, she knew he was going to do something that he didn’t want her to see, something that she couldn’t stand or stomach that he often did for her to keep Snoke from being curious. He was going to torture someone, more than likely to the brink of death, and Rey knew that someone was Poe, only right now she didn’t have the strength to do anything about it. She knew her suspicions were right when she crawled into bed, her doll from Jakku hugged tightly to her chest, when pain tore through her unexplainable bond with the Resistance pilot, the pain she hadn’t felt in a long time of someone picking apart her brain and putting it back together. But when Rey started to see visions of dark things that would soon transpire, she couldn’t help but wonder if Poe saw it as well, despite the pain, and she knew she had to do something to stop these dark visions from coming true. 


	4. The Great Escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: In this chapter it's finally really starting to fall into place with the TFA timeline, though it's going to be different, I really love the ending that I wrote for this chapter and I can't wait to get started on the next chapter :3

_ Darkness, destruction, the end of the galaxy as everyone knew it, nothing but death as far as the eye could see _ . _ Fear spread through every corner of the galaxy as quickly and violently as wildfire, the dead outnumbering the living. Then everything faded, and Rey was in a familiar forest, the forest that was on top of the Starkiller Base, and everything was dark, the last light from the sun being pulled into the weapon.  _

 

_     “Rey,” A strange voice called out to her, and yet no matter where she looked in the forest - there was no one. “Rey.” It called again, this time an old and unfamiliar man standing in front of her, dressed in Jedi robes and holding on to a lightsaber, handing it to her. When she saw the man’s face she knew it wasn’t Luke, she had seen his face before, and whoever this old Jedi was reaching out to her, they were long dead. “Follow the light, find this lightsaber, find Luke, and help save your brother from himself.”  _

 

_     Rey hesitantly took the lightsaber, it coming to life as soon as she grabbed it with a bright blue blade, something she never would have imagined in her hands, especially after all she’s done. The old man vanished and she was alone, but not for long.  _

 

_     “TRAITOR!” She turned to see her brother, staring her down in all his rage, and for the first time in her life, he looked like he genuinely wanted to kill her.  _

 

_     His lightsaber hissed to life and before Rey knew it, the two lightsabers were clashing, he wanted to fight her, and something in Rey told her that she had to stop him. The desire to kill him was there, but she ignored it, she couldn’t kill her brother, even if he looked as if he wanted to kill her, she could never bring herself to do the same to him. He saved her, they were family, and now all Rey felt was the need to save him from himself and from Snoke, and if that meant battling him, she would do it.  _

 

    The vision ended and Rey sat up on her bed, gasping for air and frantically looking around, trying to tell herself that it was all just a vision and not reality - not yet at least. Her head was pounding, a combination of Poe’s trauma and the beating Phasma gave her finally sinking in, everything hurt, yet despite all the pain, one thing seemed perfectly clear - Rey had to follow the guidance given to her from the fallen Jedi. She didn’t know the first thing about finding that lightsaber, she didn’t even know whose it was though through her vision, she remembered it feeling as if it radiated light, but that was all she knew - a feeling. There was a way to find Luke, and it was sitting in a BB unit down on Jakku that only one person could get to, and he was currently a prisoner of her brother. Poe had to escape, he had to get back to his BB unit and the Resistance had to get to Luke first, that was all that mattered.

 

    She couldn’t escape with Poe, it would be bad enough if he escaped with someone else, but if she escaped with him, there wouldn’t be much time for him to find his droid since the Order would be right on his tail. Rey needed to find someone else to get Poe out and she had to buy them some time up on the base, that was her plan, and just as Rey climbed out of bed, and head towards the door, the hole in her plan seemed to be filled with a Stormtrooper standing at her door and one crystal clear thought in his head that Rey could hear -  _ I can’t do this anymore _ . 

 

    “Uh, I’m so sorry ma’am.” The trooper stated, his voice immediately familiar and Rey remembering him as FN-2187, the only Stormtrooper she ever met that defected once to help her, and someone that was clearly willing to defect again, this time for good. “I was-” 

 

    “I need your help.” Rey hissed right away, pulling him into her quarters while no one else was in the hallway and trying to explain her plan as quickly as possible to him. 

 

* * *

  
  


    Poe had felt this indescribable pain before the Stormtroopers ever started trying to beat the answer out of him, and long before Kylo Ren had come in and picked his brain apart. He felt physical pain though he never got bruised until the Stormtroopers came in, he kept seeing flashes of the silver sheened Captain who was down on Jakku and at Kylo Ren’s side, Phasma was the name if he remembered correctly. After a few flashes he realized she was beating up Rey, he heard her voice come through crystal clear in his head and he couldn’t understand why he was feeling the pain she was being dealt, he also wondered after all the pain he went through if Rey felt the same thing. Before he had joined the Resistance and after his encounter with Rey on Tatooine, Poe looked into whatever it was that let him get that little glimpse inside her head that made him see Rey wasn’t the dark presence everyone claimed her to be. The only answer was the Force, he’d never had it when he was younger, and if it was there, he never knew it until that one moment where he heard fear and hesitation inside of Rey’s mind. He never told anyone about it, but after the intense glimpses into her mind and feeling her pain, he almost wished he had so he knew how to control it. 

 

    But Poe was exhausted now, he was barely clinging to consciousness when he heard the doors open and could only make out a dark clothed figure standing beside a shining white Stormtrooper. 

 

    “Leave us.” A stern voice hissed as the other Stormtrooper left the room, and the trooper beside the dark figure did the strangest thing Poe had ever seen a trooper do, which was take off his helmet and reveal the person inside the suit. 

 

    The dark figure approached him and rested a hand against the side of his face, an actual hand instead of a black gloved hand, and slowly his vision came into focus to make out that the dark figure before him was Rey. He felt a kind of energy slowly returning to him and by the time Rey pulled her hand away, it was enough to focus on what was unfolding in front of him. Rey didn’t say a word, instead she went to work on taking the restraints off of him while the Stormtrooper stood nervously by the door, seeming to be standing guard. 

 

    “What’s going on?” Poe was barely able to mumble the question out, his head still swimming as everything came into focus a bit more. 

 

    “You’re getting out of here. You’re going to Jakku, getting your droid, and getting out of this system as soon as possible.” Rey answered, getting the last restraint off of him and helping him out of the chair. It was then that Poe noticed all the bruises on Rey’s face, making what he saw before all the more real. “He’ll go with you.” Rey gestured towards the Stormtrooper who seemed far more nervous than Rey. 

 

    “Wait, wait a minute.” Poe said, everything finally processing as his head came out of the fog. “You’re doing it again.” 

 

    “Doing what?” Rey asked curiously. 

 

    “We really don’t have time for this.” The Stormtrooper at the door hissed. 

 

    “You’re helping me and not telling me why.” Poe said, ignoring the warning to try and finally get an answer. “You spared me on Tatooine, you helped me on Jakku, now you’re breaking me out? Why are you doing all of this?” 

 

    “I don’t know!” Rey finally exploded. “All I know is, I keep seeing things inside your head and the whole damned galaxy seems to keep telling me to save you, so I just...do it! I don’t know why, it just happens.” Rey sighed. “Look, you need to go and get your droid back to the Resistance.” 

 

    “What about you?” Poe asked. 

 

    It gave Rey a pause, it had been the first time anyone had ever really asked about her well-being. 

 

    “Someone has to keep my brother distracted while you two escape.” Rey stated. 

 

    “You’ll get killed.” Poe said. “Your brother is a maniac, do you really think he’s going to be alright with you letting me go, again?” 

 

    “He’s my brother.” Rey snapped. “He won’t kill me. And you two need to leave now, there’s a TIE Fighter ready to go, and you two better get in it before someone notices.” 

 

* * *

  
  


    From the moment Ben discovered that Poe had escaped, along with the aid of a Stormtrooper, he was furious; when he caught glimpses of Poe in Rey’s head, he locked her away in her room like a child being grounded and ordered a guard on her. Rey didn’t know what happened to Poe past the TIE Fighter being shot and making a crash landing on Jakku, she didn’t know if they were alive, where they had crashed, or anything that had really happened, all she knew was they had escaped and she was pushing her brothers limits. Rey hugged her pilot doll close to her chest, watching the holo of her parents over and over again, wondering how different her life would have been if they hadn’t sent her away, or if they had actually come back for her themselves. The older Rey got, the more conflicted she became over her parents; when she was a little girl it was easy for Ben to tell her they were bad and she believed it, now she wondered if they sent them both away because they knew the darkness that would take hold of them, and after all Rey has seen she couldn’t blame them much for that, though she wished they would have fought to keep them in the light. Sitting there, Rey knew she couldn’t waste her time wondering what had happened to Poe or what could have been with her family, she had to get out and she had to take matters into her own hands. 

 

    Rey got up off her bed and shoved her doll and the holo into a satchel, choosing to leave her lightsaber behind; she didn’t want any part of it any more. She went towards the door and was greeted with a Stormtrooper as her guard, and before he could even say a word, Rey already had him. 

 

    “You will forget you saw me and you will give me your blaster.” She had done this mind trick so many times before that it was almost a second nature to her now. 

 

    “I will forget I saw you and give you my blaster.” He repeated, handing over the weapon before returning to the stance he was in before Rey disturbed him. 

 

    Rey knew the hallways of the ship like the back of her hand, she knew how to avoid drawing attention to herself, and she knew how to find her way to her shuttle and get off of this ship and down to Jakku with as little trouble as possible. Rey was tired of waiting for just about everything in that moment, and for the first time in a long time, she took her own destiny into her hands and decided to change what her brother had done. 

 

* * *

  
  


    Poe didn’t remember much from the flight beyond making a new friend in Finn, a friend he was quickly separated from once the TIE Fighter was heading for a crash landing on Jakku. He remembered the ship spitting them both out in two different directions, and he remembered seeing the ship go up in flames, but he didn’t remember what happened to Finn and he had no idea where he was. When he woke up he was surrounded by nothing but sand as far as the eye could see, and on top of it all, it was nighttime, and Poe knew there were some strange creatures - on top of the strange people - that wandered around Jakku at night. Poe stumbled through the sand, searching for any sign of life other than the strange creatures that watched him, and after hours of walking he hesitated when he saw a First Order shuttle landed near what looked like a long dead AT-AT. It was a sign of life, but it was not the people he wanted to interact with at the moment, he had to find BB-8 and get off this planet no matter what. 

 

    “HEY!” A voice shouted from the AT-AT, he saw a figure standing on top of it now, and though he couldn’t make out who it was in the darkness, he could tell from the shadow that at least it wasn’t a Stormtrooper. 

 

    The figure jumped down off the AT-AT and ran up to him, he almost couldn’t believe it when he noticed it was Rey. 

 

    “You’re alive?” Rey asked in disbelief. 

 

    “I could say the same for you.” He couldn’t help but laugh a bit. 

 

    “I told you he wouldn’t kill me, not yet anyway, though he might now.” Rey sighed. “But all I heard was your ship got hit and crashed, I didn’t know if anyone survived, after the ship got hit they couldn’t get any readings on it, they think you’re both dead. Where’s the trooper?” Rey asked curiously, noticing Poe was alone. 

 

    “I don’t know. I woke up not that long ago, I don’t remember what happened during the crash, I don’t even know where the ship landed.” Poe admitted. “His name is Finn by the way.” 

 

    “Finn?” Rey questioned, she knew the troopers nearly all her life and knew they didn’t have actual names, but something must have clicked since her features softened and she slowly nodded. “Right, Finn.” 

 

    “Why are you out here?” Poe asked. 

 

    “Well, when I heard they lost track of the ship I tried looking for it but I found nothing, not to mention they were shooting at me so I didn’t have a lot of time to look. I...I don’t know, something told me that you weren’t dead, I was going to stay in my old home for the night and try to look for you in the morning.” Rey was chewing on her bottom lip almost nervously. 

 

    “You used to live on Jakku?” Poe questioned. 

 

    “Yeah, for a while.” Rey shrugged. “Before I was like this.” She gestured to her dark clothing.  _ ‘I was alone, I don’t like remembering it.’ _ Poe could hear her thoughts and feel the fear she felt as a child for a brief moment, something she tried to bury but bubbled to the surface being back on Jakku. 

 

    “There room for someone else to catch some sleep for the night in there?” Poe asked, hoping to change the subject so she wouldn’t be so uncomfortable. 

 

    “Yeah, if you don’t mind sleeping on a floor really. There’s a few blankets left but most of the stuff is gone, scavengers probably.” Rey said. 

 

    “Right now a solid floor sounds great after walking through all this sand.” Poe said with a smirk and catching a small hint of one on Rey’s lips. 

 

    “You get used to it after a while.” Rey mumbled quietly, turning and leading Poe back to the AT-AT home. “I disabled the tracking in the shuttle by the way, they can still find us but they’ll have a hell of a time searching through all the desert to get to us.” 

 

    “Good to know.” Poe sighed, trudging through the sand to try and keep up with Rey who seemed to navigate it with ease, he didn’t know how long she lived on Jakku as a child, but it must have been long enough for her to still have the muscle memory to navigate the desert. 

 

    She climbed on top of the AT-AT like it was nothing, dropping on the other side by the entrance while Poe navigated his way around to the front. Rey stepped aside to let Poe go in first and he had to pause for a moment once he entered. If scavengers had come into her place, they hadn’t taken much, it still looked like someone lived here, a child to be exact. There were dead flowers sitting in vases, drawings scattered about - and to his surprise most of the drawings were pretty accurate, and mostly consisted of Resistance ships. What caught his eye was a doll sitting close to a makeshift bed of blankets, that seemed to be untouched by the rest of the harsh desert that made it’s way through here over the years. 

 

    “That looks like a little Resistance pilot.” Poe pointed out as Rey walked in and crouched beside him, Poe taking a seat on the floor beside her. 

 

    “That’s mine, I mean, I’ve had it since I was a kid. I made it when I lived here to keep me company.” Rey crawled over to the pile of blankets and started spreading them out to make room. 

 

    Poe looked around the AT-AT a bit more, beside the blankets he spotted a shiny holo disk that he couldn’t help but wonder what was on it and why she brought that with her, it also made him wonder about the doll she seemingly kept over the years that was clearly dressed as part of the Resistance, yet she held onto it all this time. Closer to him he spotted a Stormtrooper standard issue blaster, he’d faced off against enough of them to be able to spot them right away, it must have been the weapon she grabbed during her escape. 

 

    “Where’s your lightsaber?” Poe blurted out before fully thinking it though, wondering why she’d take a blaster over her weapon of choice. 

 

    “I, uh, didn’t want it anymore.” Rey started to clam up a bit, Poe could see how uncomfortable she was getting. “I...I did a lot of things I’m not proud of with it, I don’t want to remember them, and I don’t want it to be a part of me anymore.” 

 

    It was then that Poe realized she was serious about leaving the Order, she knew what she had done, she regretted it, and she wanted to change, starting by leaving behind the weapon she used to hurt so many innocents. 

 

    “I understand.” Poe offered her a smile in hopes of getting her at ease again. 

 

    “You can sleep over here by me or somewhere else if you want, I just spread the blankets out.” Rey mumbled and he saw her reach out for her doll, holding onto it at a distance as almost a form of comfort. 

 

    “Thanks.” Poe nodded and crawled over to where Rey was, taking a seat on the blankets opposite from her and an awkward silence settling between them, both exhausted but neither tired enough to just go to sleep in the silence. 

 

    “How’s your head?” Rey asked curiously, letting go of the doll and focusing on him again. 

 

    “Terrible.” Poe said with a slight laugh. “I have to say it’s been a busy twenty-four hours. How about your head, you don’t look too great.” 

 

    “I’ve had worse.” Rey replied. “Here, I can help.” She reached out towards him and hesitated right near his face, waiting for him to give her an okay to do what she had done beforehand. Poe nodded and she scooted closer, resting her hand on the side of his face. 

 

    The pain slowly started to subside until he could barely feel anything at all, Rey taking her hand away seeming to know this, and looking a little more tired in the process. 

 

    “What is that?” Poe asked curiously, she must have used the Force, that much he could tell from the feeling, but he didn’t know how that could be. 

 

    “Force healing.” Rey yawned. 

 

    “That doesn’t sound like something you learned from your brother.” Poe stated. 

 

    “It isn’t.” Rey smirked. “He taught me how to drain energy from people, at first I just reversed it to help myself heal from battles and training, but then I tried it on a few others and looked into it a bit more on my own. Lots of Jedi used to do it, I figured since it was something they did it would be best to not tell my brother. Besides, wounds like yours are easy to fix with it, if you’d been shot that would have been more difficult.” 

 

    “I imagine it would have been.” Poe laughed. “Thank you.” 

 

    Rey shrugged in response and started to lay down, curling up in the blankets and tiredness truly taking hold of her. 

 

    “I wish I could return the favor.” Poe said. 

 

    “Don’t worry about it, I heal quick on my own.” Rey mumbled, bringing her blanket closer to her. “Goodnight.” 

  
    “Night.” Poe said, a yawn creeping up on him as well as he laid down on the blanket now, trying to find a comfortable spot to sleep for the night. 


	5. Stress Relief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I swear on my grave that I did not anticipate this chapter being smutty. Yes, you've been warned, it's smutty at the end, but it just kinda...happened, I did not plan it. But it just seemed to fit at the time and while I was planning out the future chapters, that kinda stuff wouldn't really fit in anywhere, but if they had that connection now before going into the thick of things, it'd make things more interesting. ;) So, enjoy this little freebie, it was a complete accident but hey, i'm going with the writer's flow.

    That morning Rey awoke to a strange warmth around her, making the heat from the Jakku sun beating down on the AT-AT nearly unbearable. She realized what the source of the extra heat was when she moved and heard Poe groan a bit in protest; he had his arm around her and at some point in the night he had pulled her close to his chest. Rey tried to wiggle free from his grasp but to no avail, and upon realizing she would be stuck with him until he woke up, she grabbed the holo disk near the blankets and watched the familiar recording of her parents come to life again. Rey still didn't know how she felt about them, they were her parents, that much was true, but they also left her on a desert planet when she was only five years old, and if Rey ever got to see the, face to face, she knew she would ask them why they sent her and Ben away. After a few minutes, Poe finally shifted and let go of her, and Rey immediately shut off the holo and sat up in the blanket pile, pretending to stretch while Poe let out a yawn and slowly sat up. 

 

    “Morning.” He mumbled, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. 

 

    “Morning.” Rey answered back. 

 

    “Man, it's hot in here.” Poe sighed, Rey could see a faint sheen of sweat on him in the sunlight that streamed into the home, and she knew she was sweating from the heat as well, but it didn't bother her as much. 

 

    “It's Jakku, it's always hot everywhere.” Rey groaned. 

 

    She went to take off a few layers of her clothes, the black colored and heavy fabrics provided by the First Order weren't ideal for the desert heat of Jakku. As soon as Rey went to remove the top layer of her tunic, Poe froze up when he saw her. 

 

    “Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?” Poe asked, causing Rey to pause. 

 

    “In case you haven't noticed, I'm dressed in all black, it's not ideal for this place, I'm just taking a few layers off. Don't worry flyboy, I have more on underneath.” Rey assured him with a slight smirk and was released when she was down to her black flowy tunic underneath that had no sleeves, though she was stuck in the long black pants and boots, they would have to do. 

 

    After a moment, Poe followed suit and took off his jacket, tying it around his waist and looking to Rey for what they would do next since she was the only one out of the two of them who knew Jakku. 

 

    “Where do we get water around here?” Poe asked curiously. 

 

    “Well, usually you have to scavenge parts and trade with Unkar Plutt, if that disgusting creature is still alive, or of course there's always stealing, but if I hid that box well enough, we don't have to do any of that.” Rey got up from her pile of blankets and made her way into what used to be the control room of the vehicle. 

 

    It looked gutted, more than she remembered gutting it herself, but she was relieved to see that no one that came through here had been clever enough to look under the useless scrap wires that were fried and rusty buttons and springs to find her hidden stash. Shortly before Ben came and took her away, she was lucky enough to have a particularly good scavenging trip, she usually kept the stash for when storms would blow through and she'd be trapped for days inside the AT-AT, but that stash would come in handy for her and Poe, it would give them time to actually look for BB-8 instead of trying to survive while looking for him. She pulled the rusted old case out from under the heap and opened it up, seeing four full water canteens and ten portions that would surely hold them over for the time they'd be here. Rey took the case back to where Poe was and opened it up again in front of him, if there was one thing she learned from her years on Jakku it was that the portions never went bad and the water almost always tasted terrible. 

 

    “It's not much but it'll hold us over for a few days, it should give us time to find your droid, and maybe even Finn.” Rey stated. 

 

    “We’ll find them, I know we will.” Poe assured her and grabbed a canteen, taking a small sip of the warm water. “Where should we search first?” 

 

    “There's a pretty decent sized village to the west, close to where you got the map, your droid could be there if he wanted to be close to where you were last together.” Rey pointed out. “Or he could be at Niima Outpost, that's to the east of here, that's the only other town close by.” 

 

    “We'll try the village first, he might have stayed close.” Poe hoped that for once that BB-8 disobeyed and stayed close. 

 

    “We should eat then, it'll be a long day.” Rey sighed and used some of her water in small bowls before tearing open the portion packs. “They're not the best tasting thing in the galaxy, but they'll do. Give those a quick stir, I'm just going to pack my bag real quick.” 

 

    Rey was quick and nimble, even in their confined quarters, and Poe watched as she packed her doll and blaster into her bag, along with grabbing the holo and accidentally activating it. Poe watched the image of a young Han and Leia briefly come to life before Rey frantically turned it off and Poe looked away, pretending not to see if. He knew Rey was Han and Leia's daughter, he knew the General often thought about the family she lost, but he never suspected that her children would do the same. Rey was different though, she always had been from the moment Poe first met her, she wasn't a part of the Order despite growing up in it, she didn't belong with them, and actually carrying a holo of her parents only seemed to prove that more for Poe. 

 

    “Go ahead and dig in.” Rey stated as she sat beside him again. “They don't taste any better if you wait.” 

 

    Poe could see a faint blush on her cheeks and he could feel a faint wave of her embarrassment, she knew he saw the holo and was petrified. As it was Poe could tell that she was still slightly embarrassed about him knowing that she still carried her pilot doll with her. Rey may have been part of the Order, and she may have done some things she regrets, but Poe could tell there was the heart of a good person buried in there and he was determined to bring it out. 

 

* * *

 

    Rey took him to a place called Cratertown, the closest village to the one where Poe had gotten the map piece from Lor San Tekka. It was a bit larger, but Poe began to notice that most villages on Jakku looked the same; huts covered with tarps, scrap metal lying all around, and people glaring at them with every move they make. Poe almost felt the need to stay close to Rey’s side, but he knew she could more than handle herself and would reject any help from him. They wandered around the town for a while before ending up in some place called Ergel’s Bar, a run down cantina filled with probably the most untrustworthy people in the galaxy. After some convincing, Poe finally got Rey to leave the cantina as more eyes followed her and told her that BB-8 wouldn't wander into a place like this. They made the long journey back to the AT-AT, sunburnt and exhausted, and nearly collapsed when they entered the old vehicle. 

 

    “We can go to Niima tomorrow.” Rey finally spoke after taking a few sips of water. “That's the only other place nearby, he has to be there somewhere, we have to find him.” she mumbled more to herself. 

 

    “We'll find him.” Poe assured her for the second time that day. 

 

    “The longer he's out there, the bigger the chance my brother has not finding it, if he gets your droid first, the whole galaxy is doomed.” Poe could see the worry on Rey’s face, it was something past just saving him and BB-8, it was something deeper. 

 

    “Calm down.” Poe tried to say gently. 

 

    “I am calm.” Rey hissed through her teeth. 

 

    “What's wrong?” Poe asked curiously. “You're worrying about more than Beebee-Ate, I can tell. Believe me, I want him back for more than just holding the map piece, he's my buddy, he's been with me through everything, but you're worried about more than him.” 

 

    “I saw the galaxy dying.” Rey admitted with a sigh. “I saw Snoke winning, my brother getting killed by him, and the whole galaxy dying. There was...there was this man, an old Jedi, he told me to find Luke and his lightsaber, that it's the only thing that can save the galaxy. The only way to get to Luke it through the map your droid has.” Rey’s face was scrunched up with worry, her shoulders tense and nothing but frustration radiating off of her. 

 

    “Hey,” Poe said, resting his hand on her back and freezing as she tensed, not moving an inch until she relaxed. “We're going to find Beebee-Ate, he's a smart droid, he knows not to trust anyone that isn't me or from the Resistance. The galaxy isn't going to blow up today, we'll be fine.” He calmed her with his gentle words and rubbing small circles into her back, Poe feeling all her muscles relaxing under his touch. 

 

    “I hope so.” Rey mumbled. “You've seen for yourself all the power the Order has now, and it's growing everyday.” 

 

    “I've been fighting them for years, I know.” Poe told her. “The sun is going down and you know all the dangers out there, Beebee-Ate can last another day on his own. All we can do is crash early and wake up early to go to Niima.” 

 

    “Yeah, you're right.” Rey finally sighed. “Are you hungry?”

 

    “No, I think I'll wait until morning.” Poe said. “I'm beat.” 

 

    “Me too.” Rey stated. “Let's get some sleep.” 

 

    “Hey, you're face is better.” Poe finally noticed, his hand slipping up her back and cupping the side of her face now, amazed that all her bruises were gone already. 

 

    “I told you I heal fast.” She grinned. “I've been healing a little bit all day, how's your head feeling? I've got some energy to spare.” 

 

    “It's sore but I'm fine.” Poe dropped his hand from her face now with a slight grin. 

 

    “You've still got bruises, here.” Rey crawled forward without thinking much about it, practically sitting in his lap and resting her hand on his face again, letting her energy slowly flow into him and heal his bruises. 

 

    They kept their eyes locked and Poe wasn't sure if it was just her closeness or an actual spark between them, but he just couldn't tear himself away from her hazel eyes for a second. A few moments later and all too soon, Rey slowly pulled her hand away and cracked a smile.

 

    “All better.” She mumbled. 

 

    Poe took her hand before she could pull it all the way away from him. He didn't think much about it, and he figured that had something to do with thinking about a moment like this too long in his head, but he tugged Rey a bit closer to test it out, and when she leaned closer Poe closed the gap and his lips met hers. It took seconds for the strange spark to take over and drive them both to deepen the kiss, Poe pulling Rey into his lap and holding her close while she tangled her fingers in his hair. They were both sunburnt terribly, their reddened skin causing even more heat between them that made it almost unbearable and causing Poe to try and get his hands under her tunic, and the moment his calloused hands touched her soft skin that had a few scars Poe could feel, Rey let out a moan into the kiss that nearly drove Poe to the edge. It'd been awhile since he kissed anyone and even longer since he kissed anyone like this, with that much passion that wasn't sparked by some liquor in the process, and he wanted to kiss Rey like that forever, his hands on her skin and her hands trying to grasp for some of his. 

 

    Rey pulled away first, gasping for air and her lips swollen and pink from their intense kiss, her chest was heaving and there was a glint of something in her eyes that Poe couldn't shake. 

 

    “Sorry, we can stop.” Poe finally spoke, pulling his hands away while his mind was still racing, his thoughts consumed with only her and what he could describe as a faint scratching in the back of his mind, telling him Rey was trying to get in. 

 

    “No, I need this.” Rey grumbled, reaching to the bottom of her tunic and pulling it off in one swift motion, tossing it aside where it landed and changed against something before she pressed her lips against Poe’s again and started tugging at the bottom of his shirt. 

 

    She wanted an outlet for relief, Poe could understand that, he had been that for many people over the years, but Poe felt something deeper between them past just an urge to release some stress. Poe pulled away for a moment and Rey took the opportunity to grab at Poe’s shirt and rip it off of him up over his head. 

 

    “Rey, we shouldn’t.” Poe tried to argue, but he slowly started to hear bits and pieces from Rey’s own mind mixing with his own and being taken over with the image in front of him, thinking about just how damned beautiful Rey looked in that moment - tanned warm skin, a light sheen of sweat, and she was now working on taking her hair out of her three buns and letting it cascade down in soft curls just past her shoulders. 

 

    “I know.” Rey nodded, though her climbing into his lap and her hands trying to mess with the buttons on his pants now suggested otherwise. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had it with all the stress from the past few days, I just  _ need _ something to make me forget about it for a few hours. I don’t want to think about the galaxy, I don’t want to think about my brother, I don’t want to think about all the people counting on us to find your droid and get you back to your base, I just want to forget for a little bit.” She pulled away now after undoing the button and staring at him seriously now. “If you don’t want to I get it, I just figured...we were both here and...I feel this...connection? Towards you I mean. I just feel safe with you.” 

 

    She was being serious, Poe could tell even in her thoughts that he was filtering through that she was being completely serious. Rey wanted to forget about the weight of the universe on their shoulders for just a little bit, he was here, he was familiar to her in some capacity, and they had a connection - she trusted him enough with this connection they shared to just let go of a little stress and forget for just a few hours. He couldn’t do much else for her, that he knew, and somehow he managed to rationalize that having sex with Rey would be fine, that they could just get rid of this tension and continue on with the rest of the mission she seemed to join now; it’d be fine, or at least he hoped. 

 

    Without much more thought, Poe just nodded and pulled Rey down to him, pressing kisses down her neck and burying his face in her hair as she moaned and groaned and thrusted her hips downward into his lap, only making things much worse than they had been a few minutes ago. Just as Poe was getting lost in the kisses, Rey pulled away and crawled out of his lap, he thought that she was stopping, but when he saw that she head over to the blankets and started trying to push them all together to make a somewhat comfortable bed, Poe joined her and continued their kisses from there. He put his hands back on her hips as he started to make his way to the button on her pants, undoing it quickly before slipping her pants down to her boots, pulling those off before getting her pants out of the way. Rey quickly followed the same motions as she got Poe’s boots and pants off of him and went back to kissing his lips, her arms entwined around his neck and pulling her body closer to his despite the heat between them. Poe hand’s inched up and started trying to undo the breastband Rey had on, she grinned in their kiss and gladly assisted in getting the contraption off before it got tossed aside as well, getting lost in the blankets with the rest of their clothes. 

 

    Poe pulled away from their kiss and took the time to just stare at Rey, practically bare in front of him save for her underwear. All her skin was tanned, aside from the reddened skin from the new sunburn she received today, she had freckles on her face and shoulders and scattered beauty marks up her arms, on her chest, on her stomach, just about everywhere. 

 

    “You’re beautiful.” Poe mumbled out. 

 

    “I don’t think you really need to sweet talk anymore, I’m already out of my clothes.” Rey smirked. 

 

    “I’m not sweet talking you, I’m just telling you, you’re beautiful.” Poe clarified with a smile of his own. 

 

    Rey was speechless for once, a smile still on her face and her glancing away, trying to hide the faint blush in her cheeks. She finally looked back at him after a moment, the blushing still evident, but she didn’t care now. 

 

    “Well, are you going to stare at me all night or are you going to do something about the face of that there is a naked girl sitting in front of you?” Rey questioned. 

 

    Rey clearly wasn’t used to compliments, Poe could understand that, who knows who she had been around before in this way before him with growing up in the First Order. Poe pulled her close to him again and continued his kissing down her shoulders and slowly down her chest. Once he reached her collarbone, Rey’s hands slipped under the waistband of Poe’s boxers and started trying to get rid of his underwear. He allowed her to do so and assisted her in the matter, before he started doing the same to her. It wasn’t until he’d gotten her out of her underwear that he realized he didn’t exactly go on his mission with the thought of that he’d be sleeping with anybody. 

 

    “You know, I didn’t, uh-” 

 

    “It’s fine.” Rey cut him off right away, pressing quick kisses to his lips, not wanting their contact to end. “I can hear you, remember.” 

 

    “Right, right.” Poe thought, he wasn’t used to someone being in his head, he wasn’t sure he’d like anybody back in his head after what Kylo Ren had done, but it just happened with Rey, and she wasn’t poking and prodding for information, she was just telling him what she liked and wanted to know what he liked as well, she wanted them to relax and that’s it. 

 

    Poe continued on his mission of kissing every square inch of Rey that he could get his mouth on; he’d just started kissing her breasts when Rey got ahold of him and got on top of him, pressing him down into the blankets and straddling him with a broad grin on her face. 

 

    “I appreciate the kisses, but you’re going too slow.” Rey whispered mischievously, biting her lip afterwards and trying to move herself into just the right position. 

 

    Poe was going to make a remark, he wanted to in the most desperate way, but before he could even get the words out, Rey lined herself up over him and just  _ dropped _ onto him, causing moans and groans to come out of both of them as they adjusted to the new sensation of him being inside of her. It only took Rey a few minutes before she adjusted and made it perfectly clear that she wanted to control what was going on between them, her nails clawing into his chest as she slowly started to set a pace of thrusts between them. She knew what she wanted and she was going to get it, Poe putting his hands on her waist to feel the motion and use it to keep up with her own thrusts, more than happy to surrender to her. 

 

    “I bet you’re a ladies man around the base, aren’t you flyboy? Pretty face like yours, they must love you.” Rey was mumbling between thrusts, a grin on her face as she kept her eyes on him. 

 

    “Mmm, no.” Poe answered. “I don’t mix work and this.” 

 

    “Too bad, they’re missing out.” Rey laughed and leaned down to press some kisses to his jaw, still keeping her pace. 

 

    “I don’t care about them right now, trying to focus.” Poe mumbled into her hair and Rey couldn’t help but laugh again. 

 

    “I know, you’re very intent on focusing.” Rey giggled. 

 

    She took his hands and rested them on the scars on her hips, exactly what he was thinking about in that moment before she pulled away and rested her own hands over his and letting out a few more moans the more he thrusted. He changed their pace a few moments later, going a bit faster and feeling Rey clench down around him more, she was soaking wet, her moans more frequent, and every muscle in her body reacting to his touch; she was getting close, and all Poe really wanted was to give her what she wanted. She let go of his hands and went back to clawing at his shoulders instead, trying to steady herself while Poe caressed her breasts while her body arched and her nails dug in deeper to his shoulder blades. She was dangerously close, and four thrusts later, she was letting out a loud moan, her thrusts getting slower and slower as she came around him. He was going to pull away, he didn’t care if he came or not, he could handle himself, but Rey quickly grabbed ahold of him and lowered herself back down with a grin. 

 

    “Not so fast, it’s your turn. Stress relief for the both of us, remember?” Rey reminded him, and though she was tired and her muscles were shaking, aching with all the release her body had just gone through, she was determined. 

 

    It only took a few more thrusts for Poe to reach his own climax, he thought Rey would pull away just to be safe but she stayed right on top of him, lowering herself down to press gentle kisses to his lips, and when he was done she pulled herself off of him, lying beside him in their messy pile of blankets, both a mess of sweat and fluids, but neither caring for the first time in a week since the stress crashed down around them. He wrapped his arms and pulled her close, though between the heat and sweat it wasn’t something ideal, but Poe just wanted her close to him and Rey didn’t seem to mind, pulling the blankets over to throw across their midsections and finally relax into his embrace. 

 

    “This is the best I’ve felt in a long time.” Rey mumbled into his shoulder. 

 

    “Same here.” Poe admitted, trying to brush some of her wild brown curls that clung to the side of her face with sweat away so he could memorize how she looked in that moment forever. 

 

_ “I’m not going anywhere just yet, maybe we can do this again sometime.” _ Rey’s voice came through crystal clear in his mind and Poe cracked a smile. 

 

    “Well, we don’t know when that time will be, so I figured I’d have something to remember.” Poe smirked. 

 

    “You’re strange, Poe Dameron.” Rey sighed. 

  
    “You’re pretty strange yourself.” Poe teased back before pressing a kiss to her forehead and relieved to see a smile on her face. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter moves the story along a lot, meaning they finally get off Jakku :P But I did skip over a few parts and shorten a few things because I'm not trying to retell the entire movie, hopefully you guys get that and I imagine you wouldn't want to be reading everything you've already seen in the movie ;) Enjoy!

    Rey woke up again to the familiar heat of Jakku sinking into the metal all around her and warming up the decommissioned AT-AT. What was different however was the fact of that she was wrapped up in blankets, no clothes on still underneath, and was tangled in the limbs of Poe Dameron. She didn’t really know what drove her to the point of sleeping with the Resistance pilot last night, though she figured it was a combination of the stress from trying to find BB-8 before the First Order while also trying to avoid being captured by her brother, along with being unable to truly figure out why she had such a strong bond to the pilot beside her, she could see in his head so easily and he could see into hers, it was something she’d never experienced before. She was tempted to just lie there for a while longer and stay in the little bubble of no stress that they had created, but deep down she knew that time spent lying here with Poe was wasted time they could have used to find his droid. 

 

    Rey untangled herself from his limbs and the blankets which caused Poe to stir as well, waking up with a yawn and reaching out for Rey, his hand landing on her bare back causing her to pause for a moment. 

 

    “Morning.” Poe mumbled. 

 

    “Morning.” Rey answered. 

 

    He rubbed small circles into her lower back, something affectionate that Rey would have never expected despite their closeness last night. She sat still there for a few moments before moving away and starting to gather her clothes to get dressed. 

 

    “You alright?” Poe asked as he sat up, the blankets pooling in his lap. 

 

    “Yeah, fine. We just need to get going, Niima’s further from here than Cratertown and we need to get going if we want to get there by noon before the sun roasts us to death.” Rey explained as she got dressed, maneuvering in the AT-AT as if she never left it for so many years. “Come on, flyboy.” Rey grabbed some of Poe’s clothes and tossed them in his direction. 

 

    They get dressed fairly quickly and have something to eat and drink, but just before the head out the door for the day, Rey gather her stuff and putting it all in her bag in hopes of finally finding the little droid and leaving Jakku, Poe grabs ahold of Rey’s hand and she freezes in place. 

 

    “Are you sure you’re alright?” Poe asked. “You just seem...off.” 

 

    “I’m fine.” Rey nodded. 

 

    “Is it because of last night?” Poe questioned further. 

 

    “Look, Poe.” Rey started with a sigh. “Last night was great, really great actually, but I just don’t let myself get attached to people, I can’t. I don’t know what kind of girls you're used to, but if we’re perfectly honest with each other, I’m sure it was just something that’d happen only once. You know who I am and I know who you are, after I help you get your droid back to the Resistance, it’d probably be better for everyone if I just disappeared.” 

 

    “What are you talking about?” Poe asked in confusion. “Last night you-” 

 

    “Last night was last night, it’d be better for everyone if it stayed that way.” Rey replied. “I’ve killed people, innocent people, who on the Resistance base would accept me for that? Everyone would be looking over their shoulders all the time, wondering if I’m still working for the Order, if I’d kill one of them without a second thought. Not to mention my brother would hunt me down relentlessly if he knew I was with the Resistance. Maybe my Uncle Luke was right to disappear, it’d be good for the galaxy if I did the same.” 

 

    Rey got up and walked out of the AT-AT, Poe shortly running behind her until he caught up to her. 

 

    “I know who you are and what you’ve done, but you’ve also helped people, I’ve heard those stories, and I’m living proof of one of them. Three years ago you could have just killed me right then and there on Tatooine but you didn’t.” Poe protested. 

 

    “Someone had to survive.” Rey mumbled. 

 

    “You saved me again here on Jakku, were you given orders to do that too?” Poe questioned. 

 

    “...No.” Rey stated. 

 

    “You’ve had chances to kill me, but you haven’t. You’ve had chances to kill plenty of innocents, but you haven’t. And not everyone at the base would treat you like that, they’ve heard the stories of you sparing people, they know people can change.” Poe explained. 

 

    “Name one person who wouldn’t hate me for what I am at that base of yours.” Rey spat, expecting him to make up some name or maybe say nothing at all. 

 

    “Your mother.” Poe said instead and caused Rey to stop right in place. “She’s a General in the Resistance, I’m sure you know that by now. She wouldn’t hate you or turn you away.” 

 

    Rey was completely silent, her face unreadable. “Maybe she should have thought about that before she left me here in the first place for Ben to find.” 

 

    She stormed off then, Rey still didn’t know how to feel about her parents, she liked to imagine in her mind that they were frozen in the time that holo in her back was taken, before her or Ben were ever born with any hope. Before they made the choice to send one off to live with Luke and her to live on Jakku. 

 

    “Maybe she didn’t have a choice!” Poe called out as he caught up to her again. 

 

    “I don’t need a Resistance lap dog telling me what I know and what I don’t know about my mother who made the choice to abandon her five year old daughter on a junkyard of a planet and leave her in the care of the worst creature in the galaxy!” Rey snapped at him now, her eyes welling up, she didn’t want to show this much emotion but he kept poking and poking at her one weakness and she just couldn’t take it. “What my brother is doing is wrong, I understand that, and he had me make some very wrong choices too that I can never undo, but he is the only member of my family that ever came for me, that ever showed their face or showed that they cared! The great Han Solo never came back for me, and neither did the great General Leia; they may be heroes to you but to me they are just the people who left me behind.” 

 

    Rey didn’t mean to cry, in fact, it was the last thing that she wanted to do - especially in front of Poe. But there she was, standing in the middle of the desert that haunted her for so many years, crying in front of a man who both fascinated her and frustrated her to no end, and talking about the parents that she resented for leaving her alone. 

 

    “Rey...I’m sorry.” Poe’s voice was soft now, she wanted to back away from him as he approached her, but instead she stood still and let him wrap his arms around her, pulling her in close for a hug, and though she didn’t wrap her arms around him, she buried her face into the crook of his neck and let herself cry for the first time in what felt like ages. 

 

    It took her a few minutes to fully let it all out, but once she did she pulled away and could help but stare at the tear stains she left on Poe’s shirt. 

 

    “Sorry.” She mumbled. 

 

    “It’s fine.” Poe assured her, rubbing small circles into her lower back again and pulling her back in for a hug, which she returned this time.

 

    “Come on, we have to go find Beebee-Ate.” Rey mumbled after a moment, pulling away from him again and sniffling still. 

 

    “Ok.” Poe nodded and finally let go of her, staying right beside her the entire time, something else that Rey was not used to. 

 

* * *

  
  


    Poe had to admit that his heart sank a bit when they arrived at Niima Outpost and he didn’t see any signs of his trusted droid anywhere, in fact, there were barely any droids around at all. But Rey was persistent, she was checking every inch of Niima Outpost, and just as Poe was about ready to tell her they should just head back to the AT-AT and call it quits as the sun was getting low in the sky. 

 

    “We should just head back.” Poe sighed, busy watching one of the many strange creatures of Jakku drinking water from the well in the ground. 

 

    “Wait.” Rey said, grabbing his arm in the process and tugging him to face what she was looking at. “Is that Finn?” 

 

    Poe turned to look and saw the familiar face of the Stormtrooper who helped him escaped and whom he presumed dead. And with him was no one other than BB-8. 

 

    “He’s got Beebee-Ate.” Poe said as a smile grew on his face, only for it to falter and two shady characters bagged BB-8 and started fighting with Finn who was doing his best to fight back. 

 

    “I’ve got it.” Rey said, grabbing a staff from one of the nearby tents and one of the people scolding her for it in a language that Poe could barely understand. 

 

    She went charging off towards them, quickly beating the thugs off of Finn and letting BB-8 out of the bag where he beeped happily at the sight of Poe running up towards them. 

 

    “Hey buddy!” Poe exclaimed as he knelt down to BB-8’s height. “You really had me worried there for a while, where did you go?” 

 

_ [Friend-Poe! I am so glad to see you again! I did as you asked and I went far away to hide. I found an abandoned ship to hide on, the night before last Friend-Finn discovered me in the ship that he used to take shelter in as well. He wished to look for you today and you have found us!] _ BB-8 trilled. 

 

    “I’m glad you're safe buddy, this ship you’ve been hiding on...does it still run?” Poe asked curiously. 

 

_ [I have not run diagnostics on the ship, Friend-Poe, but I can if you wish!]  _ BB-8 assured him. 

 

    “I don’t think we’ll have time for that.” Rey explained, Poe not realizing that Rey could understand droid, but following her line of sight where she was staring and realizing that she was staring straight at two stormtroopers who had just spotted them. “Let’s go!” Rey shouted, running with Finn, Poe, and BB-8 following shortly behind her. 

 

    It didn’t take that long for those two Stormtroopers to quickly turn into a couple of TIE Fighters swooping down around the outpost and shooting at them. 

 

    “BB-8 get us to that ship!” Poe called out as they ran, his little droid beeping in confirmation as he rolled off towards where he had been hiding this entire time. 

 

    The ship was an old freighter, half a tarp covering the back end of it, and Poe half expected that the thing wouldn’t even get off the ground. But when everyone loaded up onto it and Rey stopped as soon as she boarded the ship, he couldn’t help but wonder why. 

 

    “Rey, come on, we’ve gotta see if this thing can even fly. Finn, can you man the guns?” Poe asked. 

 

    “I got it.” Finn replied as he descended the ladder down to where the guns were. 

 

    “This thing will fly.” Rey half whispered. 

 

    Without another word, she ran off towards the cockpit with Poe shortly behind her and BB-8 assuring them that the ship would fly. 

 

    “Can you fly this thing?” Poe asked curiously, knowing that she had probably learned how to fly on the shiny new ships of the First Order rather than ancient things like this freighter. 

 

    “I can fly it, trust me.” Rey assured him. “I just need you to be my co-pilot starting with getting those shields up.” 

 

    Within a matter of minutes, just as Rey got the ship off the ground, Poe got the shields up and BB-8 only got to let out one beep of concern before Rey had them speeding across the barren desert of Jakku.

 

* * *

  
  


    Rey had never been more relieved to be back in space; they had BB-8, they found Finn, Poe was at her side, and they were leaving Jakku behind for good. All that was left was to deliver the little droid and his owner back to the base, after that, Rey had no idea what she would do with herself. She could stay with the Resistance she supposed, but she'd never feel like a true part of it with hearing the thoughts of everyone judging her, and she didn't think she could live with her mother just yet. Rey supposed she could run, live her life somewhere far away where no one - especially the First Order - could ever find her; that was a more reasonable option she thought. As if on cue, Poe reached over and gave her hand a gentle squeeze, and while Rey wanted to pull away right away, she didn't until Finn came up from his seat, a wide grin on his face, and BB-8 releasing himself from where he held on during the turbulent escape. 

 

    “Did you guys see that?” Finn was beaming, not noticing Rey pull her hand away from Poe's. 

 

    “You did a great job, Finn.” Rey gave him a grin, still feeling the thrill from actually escaping the First Order’s forces.  

 

    “You guys were  _ amazing _ , I've never seen flying like that!” Finn beamed as Rey set the Falcon to auto for a bit, their destination still unknown. 

 

    “That was mostly Rey actually, she really knows what she's doing.” Poe grinned. 

 

    “Thanks.” Rey mumbled. “We need to know where we're going if i’m going to help you guys get back to your base.” 

 

    “It's in the Ileenium system.” Poe told her without hesitation, and it made Rey pause for a moment to realize how much trust he must have had in her to tell her that. 

  
    “That's pretty far but I think this old girl can get us there.” Rey manned the controls again, getting ready to put it into hyperdrive, just as every light in the ship went red and Rey’s stomach dropped. “That's not good.” 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I finally got this chapter done! I didn't want to call it finished until I had Han and Rey talk and they have their little talk at the end ;) I hope you guys enjoy this one! Also, at the end Han gives Rey one of Leia's old outfits to change into, if it doesn't sound familiar to you, here's a link to a picture of Leia wearing the actual outfit from Return of the Jedi: http://www.jeditemplearchives.com/galleries/2013/Review_VTSCPrincessLeiaOrganaCombatPoncho/Review_VTSCPrincessLeiaOrganaCombatPoncho_stillB.jpg

    Rey thought it was the First Order, in fact, she was more than sure that it was the First Order as she was making sure Finn and Poe, along with BB-8, hid under the floor before she joined them and hoped to poison whatever Stormtroopers came aboard with the gas from one of the faulty pipes. She was sure that either they were all going to die, or that they were all going to be tortured to the point where they wished they were dead...until the grate above them was swiftly lifted up to reveal who had actually caught them. It was a giant and hairy Wookie, something she hadn’t seen except for in pieces of her childhood memory, and beside him was an old man with a blaster pointed right at them, it took her a moment to piece together the somewhat familiar facial features until she realized it wasn’t just any old man out in the galaxy who managed to capture them. 

 

    “Who’s the pilot?” He questioned right away, Rey couldn’t think of what to say since there was so much more on her mind other than her piloting the familiar ship. 

 

    “I’m the pilot.” Poe spoke up for her. 

 

    “And everyone else?” He questioned again, his hazel eyes glancing over at Rey briefly but nothing clearly registering in his features. 

 

    “It’s just us.” Poe said. “You can check the whole ship if you want, but it’s just us three and my droid.” 

 

    The Wookie ended up being the one who stared at Rey the most, his head tilting to the side until he began to speak, barely anyone understood Wookie in the galaxy anymore, but Rey could somehow understand pieces of what he was saying. 

 

    “What?” The man questioned, turning to face the Wookie, the creature explaining what he had just said again and this time looking directly at Rey. 

 

    “You can understand that thing?” Finn questioned. 

 

    “Yeah, and that thing can understand you.” The man remarked, his eyes still on Rey and silent for a moment. “Breha?” He asked in an almost whisper. 

 

    Poe, Finn, and BB-8 were all looking at her now, she didn’t think that any of them had ever heard her real name, or her full name at least. Rey stared him down until she relented and looked away to keep her eyes from watering, the Wookie she faintly remembered as Chewbacca knew her right away, but her father didn’t notice until Chewbacca pointed it out. 

 

    “Some father, you can’t even recognize your own daughter.” Rey snarled, climbing out of the hole in the floor on her own, Poe and Finn following suit while BB-8 easily used his hooks and wires to get out of the hole. 

 

    “Wait, you’re Han Solo? The war hero?” Finn questioned now, Rey supposed that even to a former Stormtrooper that meeting Han Solo would be a bit impressive. 

 

    “I was.” Han mumbled, not paying much attention to the others behind him, instead he was watching Rey in disbelief. “God, Breha, the last time I saw you...you-” 

 

    “I was being left behind on a desert planet with a foul creature.” Rey lashed out. “That was the last time you saw me.” 

 

    “I-I didn’t have a choice, neither did your mother.” Han stated, though he quickly was sidetracked by the dark clothing she wore. “Your brother? Are you still with the Order? I heard what happened and-” 

 

    “Don’t.” Rey snapped. “Don’t pretend to care, not now, not ever. You lost that right when you and my mother managed to decide that abandoning a child on Jakku was a sane idea. All you need to know is that I’m not part of the Order anymore, and all I’m trying to do is get that pilot and his droid back to their base, after that, I hope to disappear.” 

 

    She stormed off the ship past him and off the ramp, she didn’t know where she was going and quite frankly she didn’t care, all she knew was that she didn’t want to be trapped in a confined space with the infamous Han Solo any longer than she had to be. She searched for her parents when she was a child, she gave up when her brother and Snoke broke her spirits though she was still curious. But now Rey saw him, and all she saw was a broken old man who just so happened to find her in his old ship, and if it hadn’t been for Chewbacca, he would have never known that it was her. She was angry, upset - she didn’t know if she wanted to punch a hole through a wall or cry until her chest hurt - and somehow thankfully she didn’t have to decide that since she quickly felt a hand on her shoulder and knew it was Poe before even turning around. He had a certain presence about him, or so Rey came to learn, it was warm and comforting, like being wrapped up in a blanket every time he came around, and before Rey knew it, she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck again, the second time she cried today, and she hoped it would be the last. 

 

    “Some ex-Sith Lord I am.” Rey mumbled into Poe's neck before pulling away. 

 

    “It's a lot to take in, I get that.” Poe sighed, a slight smile on his face though in attempts to keep Rey calm, she could tell that's what he was doing. 

 

    “And of all the places, in his stupid ship.” Rey added with a slight laugh. “Let's just get to the closest inhabited planet and move on, I don't want to be here anymore.” 

 

    “I know it's a lot for you to take in Rey, but...maybe you should hear what he has to say at least.” Poe said as Rey caught a glimpse of Han, Chewy, Finn, and BB-8 disembarking the Falcon and heading towards them. 

 

    “Are you insane?” Rey asked in a bit of a snippy tone. 

 

    “I'm not telling you to forgive him or forget everything that's happened to you, I'd never tell you to do that, you can do that in your own time if you ever want to forgive your parents. All I think you should do is listen to what he has to say, you don't have to agree with it, just listen.” Poe reassured her. 

 

    It took Rey a moment, she wanted to say no, but she could feel Poe's warmth through their bond and she couldn't deny that she was curious to hear what led to her being left alone for so many years. 

 

    “...Fine.” Rey finally relented. 

 

    Poe pulled away from her and was the first to come face to face with Han standing not far from them. There was an awkward silence that fell between all of them until Poe glanced around the hanger and was the first to speak. 

 

    “You must be hauling something pretty big in here with a hanger like this.” Poe observed. 

 

    “Rathtars.” Han mumbled. 

 

    “You're hauling Rathtars on this thing?” Finn exclaimed. 

 

    “What the hell are Rathtars?” Rey asked, she'd seen plenty of the galaxy by now, but she still didn't know some things. 

 

    “They're big, ugly, and dangerous.” Han explained just as an unexplained beeping started to ring throughout the hanger. 

 

    “Please tell me that's not one of them getting out.” Finn said nervously. 

 

    “No, but we've got company.” Han sighed as he looked on a nearby monitor and Rey caught a glimpse of another ship boarding the hanger. “And you three have to hide.” 

 

* * *

  
  


    To Rey, it seemed almost as if the grand adventure they faced on the hanger was a typical Han Solo story that she had heard in whispers over the years; he swindled the wrong people, they came to try and get what he took, Han tries to talk his way out of it and fails, and then all chaos breaks loose as they try and escape. And after Rey and Poe helped to quickly rescue Finn from becoming a Rathtar meal, they caught up with Han, blasting his way back into the docking bay with an injured Chewbacca leaning on him. 

 

    “You two, take care of Chewy.” Han pointed out to Poe and Finn as they all ran towards the Falcon. “Breha, help me fly this thing.” 

 

    Rey just gave a brief nod and closed up the loading deck once everyone was on board before charging towards the cockpit and trying to prime up the damned compressor Unkar Plutt put in before they could fly away from this mess. 

 

    “I don’t really go by Breha anymore.” Rey mumbled as Han jumped into the pilot seat, she could hear the struggle of Poe and Finn trying to calm Chewbacca in the back. 

 

    “Yeah, you never really liked that name, did you?” Han asked. “You never really liked the braids your mom put in your hair either.” He mumbled a bit under his breath, Rey could barely hear it over the chaos, but she heard it nonetheless. “She ready for lightspeed yet?” 

 

    “You’re going to launch from inside the hangar at lightspeed?” Rey asked in a bit of shock, she had heard the stories of her father accomplish impossible things, and this seemed to be no different. 

 

    A Rathtar grabbed onto the window of the cockpit and caused Rey to jump a bit, Han just looked disgruntled if anything. 

 

    “You have any better ideas?” Han asked, and when Rey shook her head, he went ahead and activated the lightspeed that failed. 

 

    “Compressor.” Rey pointed out. 

 

    “I really hate that guy.” Han grumbled as he flipped the switch and the Falcon was suddenly jerked into lightspeed, the Rathtar on the window long forgotten as they made their great escape into the somewhat saftey of space. 

 

    All was silent for a moment as Han set the Falcon to autopilot, the sounds of Chewbacca still fighting Poe and Finn drifting up to the front of the ship. Han looked like he wanted to speak, but as soon as he tried, blaring warning alarms rang out through the ship telling them that something else was going terribly wrong. Before Han could even announce what the problem was, Rey was up and out of her seat and looking into some control panel. 

 

    “Switch it to auxiliary power.” Rey announced. “I’ve got the compressor.” 

 

    In a matter of minutes, the ship's alarms ceased as Rey held the compressor she ripped out of the ship in her hands. 

 

    “How did you do that?” Han questioned. 

 

    “I bypassed the compressor.” Rey couldn’t help but say with a bit of a smile. She had learned a lot about ships during her time on Jakku, and she managed to learn even more while she was with the Order, sneaking away to the repair bay after her training with Ben was done and watching all the ships be fixed. 

 

    “Chewbacca is all patched up.” Poe walked up to the cockpit and announced, he looked a bit out of breath and his shirt was a bit wrinkled from where Chewbacca clearly must have grabbed him. 

 

    “Thanks kid.” Han said as he got up from his seat and pat Poe on the back before heading to the back of the ship to check on his companion. 

 

    “You two talk yet?” Poe asked curiously. 

 

    “Haven’t really had the time.” Rey sighed and gave a bit of a shrug before following where Han went to the back of the ship. 

 

    Finn was sitting down, looking just as exhausted and roughed up as Poe, and a loyal BB-8 rolled back up over to Poe’s side as soon as he entered the room behind Rey. 

 

    “Alright, so which one of you feels like explaining to me exactly why the First Order is looking for all of you and the ball down there.” Han said. 

 

    BB-8 let out a beep of offense and Rey had to try and stifle a smile, she’d only been around the droid for a short period of time, but thought that it’s reactions and unwavering loyalty to Poe was charming. 

 

    “I’m guessing it has something to do with you leaving them.” Han gestured towards Rey. 

 

    “Partially.” Rey admitted. 

 

    “Alright, what do they want with the ball then?” Han asked. 

 

    “Beebee-Ate has a map to Luke Skywalker.” Poe announced. “Go on buddy.” Poe gave BB-8 a pat on the head before the droid rolled out to the middle of the room and showed the map that he held. 

 

    “It’s a piece of a map, but it’s not the whole thing.” Han sighed as he looked at it, staring at the blinking dot that indicated where Luke was. “If it’s a charted system, your base might have the rest of it stored in your files, but I’ve never seen a system like this one yet.” 

 

    “We’ll just have to see when we get there. How far out are we?” Poe asked. 

 

    “Oh, we’re not going to your base.” Han announced as BB-8 turned the hologram of the map off. 

 

    “Where are we going?” Rey asked. 

 

    “Takodana, you three are getting on a clean ship. Do you think it was a coincidence that Chewy and I found this ship? You’re not the only one that remembers the Falcon, Bre - Rey. Ben would be able to spot this in a heartbeat, and if you three have any hope of getting to the base before they spot you, it’s getting a clean ship on Takodana.” Han explained. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes.” 

 

    Before Rey could even sense Poe looking at her and gesturing for her to follow Han, she was already right after him and following his lead back to the cockpit. He was back in his seat already, looking over everything, Rey didn’t know how long the Falcon had been on Jakku, but judging from the way he was looking at it, it must have been a while. 

 

    “You look more like your mother you know.” Han spoke before Rey could even walk into the cockpit. “The only thing you got from me was the eyes and the love of flying, thank god.” 

 

    “I wouldn’t really know.” Rey was quiet as she sat in the co-pilot seat, her gaze on the space rapidly speeding past them instead of over at her father. 

 

    “We didn’t want to leave you on Jakku.” Han stated. “Jakku was our last resort, but we had to send you away.” 

 

    “Why?” Rey asked. “Were you scared of me like you were of Ben?” There was a twinge of pain in her voice, but she kept herself strong as she glared over at her father now. 

 

    “No. You were never anything like Ben, your brother had too much Vader in him from the beginning. We sent him to Luke hoping that Luke could reach him when your mother and I couldn’t...I guess even he couldn’t get to Ben. You were always different though, I remember the day you were born, your mother said she felt like she was holding a ball of light when she held you, there was good in you from the moment you were born. That’s why I started calling you Rey, because you were like a ray of sunshine.” Han sighed. “We sent you away because we knew Snoke had a hold on your brother already, we didn’t know how far he had his hooks in Ben, but we had to send you away before he found you. We wanted to have you live with a family, like Luke had when he was younger, but no matter where we went in the galaxy, Leia said she could still feel Snoke’s darkness hanging over the planet - except for Jakku. It was just a junkyard planet, we figured that’s why he didn’t extend his reach to there, no one would ever think to look there for someone as strong as you were going to be. The problem was there were no families on Jakku, no one willing to be responsible for a child. We didn’t want to leave you there, so we held onto you. The next night you came running into the room screaming and crying about a nightmare of some scary man killing your mom and I, we knew that was Snoke...and we knew we had to send you away from his reach.” 

 

   “He found me anyway.” Rey mumbled. 

 

    “Ben found you, Leia said she felt it. She said there’s nothing stronger in the galaxy than a bond between a brother and sister, especially when both have the Force like her and Luke. You must have been terrified, calling out for someone to find you, and Ben heard you. He found you and took you in.” Han said. “I wish we could have gotten to you before he did.” 

 

    “...You two came back for me?” Rey asked now. 

 

    “We tried. The night Ben found you, Leia said she could feel how terrified you were, she moved heaven and hell to get the both of us on a ship and out to Jakku to get you. But by the time we got there...you were gone. She said that Ben had you now, and we knew we lost another child to Snoke. Your mother and I, uh, went back to what we knew best sometime after that; you two were gone, we were always angry at one another more than usual, we just couldn’t stay together. Losing one kid was hard enough, losing two...that’s impossible to come back from.” 

 

    “I didn’t know you came back.” Rey half whispered to herself. 

 

    “We were just too late.” Han said. 

 

    Suddenly, the Falcon slowed as the planet of Takodana came into view before them. 

 

    “Come on, you’ve gotta get changed.” Han rose from his seat. “I’ve got something that might fit you in the back.” 

 

    “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” Rey asked curiously. 

 

    “The all black is a bit of a giveaway.” Han smirked at bit, the first time she’d seen him crack the semblance of a smile since she met him. 

 

    Rey followed Han without another question, Han asked Poe to go to the front and keep an eye on the landing for a minute, and Rey gave Poe a nod to let him know that things were alright for now. He led her into one of the old rooms, opened up a drawer and started to dig through a few folded up clothes that must have been there for years. He pulled out a tan collared shirt, a light blue short sleeved jacket, and blue and tan pants that seemed to match it. 

  
    “This was your mother's, she always kept clothes on the ship just in case. You look about the same size she was when she wore this thing.” He tossed the clothes over to her. “Go ahead and get dressed, we should be landing soon.” 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: It's actually taken me a bit to get this chapter up! I've had it written for a few days actually, but I wanted to post Maybe Someday first, so here we are. I hope you guys like this chapter ;)

    Takodana was...different to say the least, or at least the cantina that Han had led them into was the very definition of different. The owner of the place who Han said would be able to help them was as different as the people the came to her cantina, but Rey instantly liked her, she didn’t take any nonsense from Han or anyone really from what she could tell. To Rey’s surprise, she felt at ease in the cantina, having Poe by her side seemed to make it even easier to relax for a moment and not feel as if they were being hunted down by her brother across the galaxy. Rey didn’t even realize just how hungry she was until someone brought a tray of fruits over and she started scarfing them down, catching an amused smirk from Poe out of the corner of her eyes. 

 

    “So, do you have any ships that can get these three out of here?” Han asked curiously, taking a sip of his drink and Maz studying him closely. 

 

    “Oh, I do, but they’re not going on them, they already have a ship.” Maz countered. 

 

    “No, we’ll get spotted in a second in the-” 

 

    “You’re avoiding going to her, I can tell.” Maz cut him off. “You’ve been running for so long Han, go home.” 

 

    “...Leia doesn’t want to see me. There are only two people in the entire galaxy that she’ll want to see and one of them is sitting right over here.” He clapped his hand on Rey’s back before pulling away, casting her a quick glance before looking back to Maz. 

 

    “I knew those eyes looked familiar.” Maz was staring at Rey now, adjusting her glasses and staring at her intently. Before Rey knew it, she was crawling across the table getting closer, knocking a few things over. 

 

    “What’s she doing?” Rey asked Han. 

 

    “I don’t know.” Han shrugged. 

 

    “Are you sure this is okay?” Finn asked. 

 

    “She does it all the time.” Han replied. 

 

    “There’s something else in your eyes.” Maz mumbled. “Something...you’re looking for home, a real home.” 

 

    Rey looked away and looked down at the hands in her lap, not wanting to face Maz’s gaze anymore, Poe’s hand instantly reaching over to take her hands upon feeling her fear and wanting to hide. 

 

    “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, that feeling of being wanted, everyone wants that.” Maz said as she climbed down off of the table and sat in her chair again.

 

    Rey stayed silent and her gaze locked on Poe’s hands, squeezing them tighter with every second that passed that felt like an eternity. Before another word could be said, Rey got up from the table. 

 

    “Excuse me.” She mumbled politely before walking clear across the cantina as quickly as she could, being careful not to bump into anyone. 

 

    With Rey out of sight now, Poe jumped up from the table and was ready to go after her, but Han grabbed his arm and stopped him. 

 

    “Whoa there, let her go, let her have a minute.” Han said, Poe giving him a slight nod and sitting back down though he was uneasy about it. “You know, I have to ask, you’ve been following Br-... _ Rey _ around everywhere she goes. You’re always holding her hand or hovering near her, am I missing something here? Are you two…?” 

 

     “No, I mean...I don’t know.” Poe sighed. “It’s complicated.” 

 

    “Everything about love is complicated.” Maz laughed. “I see the way you look at her, and I see how she looks at you, whatever you two are denying, it’s not working.” 

 

    “Well, it’s not exactly the best time for that kind of stuff, Rey knows that, I know it too.” Poe tried to brush it off, but he felt all eyes on him, even the eyes of his little droid from under the table. 

 

    “I fell in love with Leia in the middle of a war.” Han spoke up. “I suppose I really don’t get a say in what Rey does with her life, I lost that a long time ago. She’s her own person, but...you seem to really care about her...go on after her. I noticed she calms down quick with you.” 

 

    Poe lingered for a moment longer before he got up from the table and tried to find Rey among the crowds of people, BB-8 trailing right behind him and hopefully not being spotted by anyone who worked for the First Order. 

 

* * *

  
  


    Rey was leaning up against a wall when he found her, her eyes shut tight but clearly aware of her surroundings, more than likely trying to meditate to clear her thoughts. Her eyes snapped open as he approached her, and as soon as he saw her hazel eyes, he grew worried. She was cold, he felt her cut herself off from whatever emotions had tried to bubble up, she was sick of letting them out for one day and she wanted none of it anymore; meditating to achieve that was all she had been taught after all he supposed. When she looked at him, her eyes were dark, but despite her glare, that didn’t stop him from reaching out to her and drawing closer. 

 

    “Are you okay?” Poe asked. 

 

    “I’m the best I’ve been all day actually.” Rey sighed. 

 

    “Are you sure?” Poe pressed on, knowing she wasn’t really okay. 

 

    “I’m fine.” Rey snapped. “I just want to get out of here, the sooner we do, the sooner you and Beebee-Ate can get back to your base and be out of my brother’s line of fire.” 

 

    “Han’s almost done talking to Maz, we’ll be out of here soon.” Poe tried to assure her, Rey just shrugged and gave a slight nod before starting to head towards the front door. 

 

    “If it’s all the same with everybody, I think I’ll just go wait on the Falcon, I need some air.” Rey mumbled, but just as she started to head towards the door, Rey froze. 

 

    “Rey?” Poe asked curiously. 

 

    “Can you hear that?” She asked quietly, just under her breath as she turned around and started heading deeper into the bar until she discovered a staircase that Poe didn’t even know was there before she started climbing down in. 

 

    “Hear what?” Poe asked as he followed her, BB-8 following as well, clanging as he carefully went down every step. 

 

    Rey didn’t say another word, she just continued forward in her trance and went down the stairs until she reached a long and dark hallway. She started going a bit slower, almost as if she actually were hearing something, and for all Poe knew she just might have been. He followed her nonetheless until she walked into a room and knelt down in front of an old box, carefully opening it and Poe seeing the glint of a lightsaber handle in it. Rey hesitated, she had told him she never wanted to touch another lightsaber again, but something was driving her to take it, and she did, her grip tightening on it as Poe watched while she was pulled into another vision of sorts. 

 

    “It’s okay.” Poe reassured her, getting a bit closer to her, but before he knew it she stumbled out of the hallway past him and dropped the lightsaber, a look of fear in her eyes. “Rey?” 

 

    “No, stay back.” Rey protested as she got to her feet. “I-I think you have to go without me.” 

 

    “What are you talking about? No one is going anywhere without you.” Poe stated as he picked up the lightsaber, he tried to hand it to Rey but she immediately backed away. 

 

    “No, I’m not touching that thing or anything else like it ever again, I’m done.” Rey was frantic now and ran out of the room without another word. 

 

    “REY!” Poe called out after her and started running, BB-8 beeping frantically and trying to keep up with him. 

 

* * *

  
  


    Poe was trudging through the forest, trying to follow Rey’s trail and feeling more than relieved when he finally caught up to her. BB-8 rolled up to her first and alerted her of Poe’s presence first, nudging her leg and waiting for her to pat him on the head, which she did; Poe had to admit that he thought it both strange and amusing that BB-8 had managed to grow attached to Rey in such a short amount of time. 

 

    “I told you not to follow me.” Rey sighed as she turned to face him. 

 

    “I know.” Poe nodded. “Don’t worry, I don’t have it with me, I gave it to Maz on the way out of there. What did you see when you grabbed it?” 

 

    “I don’t want to talk about it because it’s not important. It’s not going to happen.” Rey stated. 

 

    “Something tells me it’s important.” Poe pried. 

 

    “...I saw you die.” Rey finally admitted. “I saw my brother overpowering me and making me kill you to be specific, with that lightsaber.” 

 

    “Oh…” Poe said. 

 

    “It’s not going to happen, because I’m leaving.” Rey stated. 

 

    “Where are you going to go? How do you plan on running away from your brother? You can’t run from him, you have to face it.” Poe told her. 

 

    “I’ll go somewhere in the Outer Rim, he has to give up at some point, he won’t care about me or you or anyone after a while, he’ll just want his pride and glory and that’s it.” Rey snapped. 

 

    “Alright, well, if that’s your plan, then I’ll go with you.” Poe said, he knew how Rey would react to it, he expected her to react to it, it was such a short amount of time but he felt as if he knew her so well already. 

 

    “What? No, you can’t. You have to go back to your base and get the map to the Resistance.” Rey insisted. 

 

    “I go where you go.” Poe shrugged. “We have a bond, you know it and I know it, and it’s strong too. I know you don’t want to run, and you know that I don’t want to turn away from this fight either.”    
  
    “I don’t want to hurt you.” Rey’s voice cracked a bit, her cold demeanour fading away. 

 

    “You’re not going to hurt me.” Poe’s voice was low as he took a step towards her. “You’re stronger than you think.” 

 

    Rey’s eyes flickered away from him for a moment before looking back, wiping the small tears away before they could fall. She gave a small nod before walking forward and while Poe expected her to wrap her arms around him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a quick kiss on the lips, their first real personal interaction since that one night on Jakku where she swore up and down it was a one time thing, but Poe felt something different, and now he knew she did too. Before the moment could be continued, BB-8 frantically beeped and both Poe and Rey heard explosions, they looked up to the sky and saw nothing but red debris falling, right where the planets of the Republic used to be. 

 

    “Oh god.” Rey whispered. “They’ve finished it.” 

 

    “Finished what?” Poe asked. 

  
    “Starkiller.” She said grimly, and just as she said so, First Order ships sped overhead and were heading directly towards the cantina. “We have to hide Beebee-Ate, he’s coming.” 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I was going to wait and post this tomorrow morning, BUT, in honor of hitting 600 followers today on my tumblr, I decided to just go ahead and publish it tonight! Also, I'm working on a special little one shot of my own to also thank all you lovelies :3 I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!

    He could feel her fear a mile away, he  _ knew _ her fear, it once called out to him across the galaxy, begging to be found though she was so far away. He could feel her fear right now, just as violent and potent as ever, cutting through all the chaos that quickly enveloped Takodana; his sister was never very good at hiding her emotions, especially from him. 

 

    “Sir,” One of the Stormtroopers approached him. “There’s no sign of her or the droid.” 

 

    “She’s here.” Kylo replied. “Keep looking for the droid, I know where to find her.” 

 

    With that, the stormtrooper ran off back into the chaos of battle while Kylo made his way with ease through the battlefield, being drawn towards the forest where he felt her fear radiating from. He knew Rey was out here somewhere, it wouldn’t take long to track her down, and the closer he got, the more he felt another presence with her, one he’d felt before - the pilot was still with her, the pilot that corrupted Rey, and he was going to make sure that it was the last thing that no good Resistance pilot did. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


    Rey told BB-8 to go find Han, he would be much safer with her father than he would be out here with her and Poe. She could feel her brother approaching them, it was like a sharp pain stinging at the back of her mind, she knew he was angry - furious was more the word actually - and she had to find a way to keep Poe out of his line of fire. Rey would have rather sent Poe away with BB-8, back to some sort of safety, but he refused to leave her side, yet some part of her was grateful for that. Kylo was trying to get into her head with all his might, but Rey kept him at bay, trying to keep him from finding out just where she was though he would find her sooner or later. 

 

    “He’s getting closer, I really think you should go Poe, he’s going to kill you if he sees you.” Rey’s heartbeat was getting faster and faster, her anxiety beginning to grow. 

 

    “I’m not leaving you out here to face him down by yourself.” Poe stated. 

 

    “I know you don’t want to leave me, but you don’t know what my brother can do when he’s-” 

 

    Rey stopped her sentence short as soon as she heard the faint and deadly buzzing that could only come from one violent and powerful lightsaber, one she had been on the other end of many times before, but only when she had her own lightsaber in hand. Now all she had was a blaster, which he could easily stop with little to no effort at all, and if he was angry enough, he could certainly redirect any fired blasts back at her, or worse, at Poe. 

 

    “Run!” Rey hissed, making sure Poe ran ahead of her before trying to keep up the pace with him. 

 

    She didn’t make it far before she felt her brother's presence right behind her. Rey turned quickly and tried to fire a blast, the red bolt freezing in midair between her and Kylo, his power extending to her and freezing her in place. Rey didn’t need to see under her brothers mask to know his anger, she felt it, so violent and full of rage that if felt as if it were boiling her own blood. He had said he wouldn’t kill her before, but that was different, that was before she ran off with the rebels and betrayed him, back when he still considered her his blood, now she’d be lucky if he just let Phasma beat her up again though she knew that was highly unlikely. 

 

    “Let her go!” Rey’s heart dropped when she heard Poe’s voice, she had hoped he would keep running, but that just wasn’t the kind of man that Poe Dameron was - he never ran away from a fight, especially if he cared about the person. 

 

    Kylo’s attention snapped towards Poe though his power kept Rey frozen in her place, helpless to do anything. Kylo took the blast Rey had fired earlier and sent it flying past her line of sight, she wanted to scream and warn Poe, but she couldn’t. She knew it hit him when she heard him grunt and fall to the ground, she didn’t know if he was dead or alive at this point, until Kylo let her go and she collapsed onto the ground, turning to see Poe lying on the ground, face forward and unconscious. She could still feel him through the Force, she knew his heart was still beating though she didn’t know where the bolt hit him, if only she could get to him and heal him a bit she would feel better. But it wasn’t long until Kylo dragged her to her feet and forced her to look directly at him, the cold metal mask just inches away from her face and the powerful red lightsaber humming and burning the skin on her hand that he held it close to. 

 

    “The pilot’s grown quite fond of you.” Kylo’s altered voice, full of only anger, said. “As you’ve grown quite fond of him, sadly.” 

 

    “Leave him alone.” Rey growled through her clenched teeth. 

 

    “You’ve fallen so far in a matter of days, you’ve gone soft - you’re a failure.” Kylo hissed. “I’d be doing you a favor by killing the pilot, he seems to be the source of bringing you into the light.” 

 

    Rey saw his free hand start to reach out towards Poe, she couldn’t let this happen, she couldn’t let her brother hurt Poe, he’s already suffered so much, she wouldn’t let him suffer anymore. 

 

    “Wait!” Rey shouted, Kylo stopping and staring at her again. “I’ve seen the map...I know where Luke is. Leave him alone, and I’ll let you see it.” 

 

    Kylo dropped his arm, interested in only what she had to say now, she felt him trying to probe her mind a bit and she let him see enough to know she was telling the truth. 

 

    “The pilot will live, for now. But you may not be so lucky anymore,  _ traitor _ .” Kylo said, and before Rey could say another word, everything went black. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


    Poe woke up sometime after he heard Kylo Ren storm off, everything was a bit blurred and hard to focus. He pulled himself up to his feet and realized then as he leaned back against one of the trees behind him, that Kylo Ren had shot the bolt straight through his side,  most of his skin burned but there was still some blood. Rey was gone, he was sure he caught a glimpse of Kylo carrying her off, and Poe thought that if he was lucky he’d be able to stop them despite his condition. Poe stumbled his way through the forest, using every tree he encountered as a balance to keep him on his feet until he stumbled into what used to be the cantina. The whole area had been turned into a battleground, dead stormtroopers and people scattered across the ground, the survivors scouring the grounds and looking for those who were still alive and needed help. He heard the familiar sound of X-Wings soaring through the air above him, the Resistance had showed up thankfully. 

 

    “Poe!” He heard a familiar voice call out to him, it was Finn charging towards him, BB-8 at his side and rolling just as fast as he could to get back to Poe. “What happened to you?” Finn asked, a bit concerned and looking at the horrible wound Poe was trying to put pressure on to keep himself from bleeding anymore. 

 

    “It’s a long story.” Poe sighed, he was starting to feel a bit weak again, he needed to sit before he fell down. He stumbled a bit, Finn keeping him from falling, before he sat down on a chunk of bricks that had been blown apart from the cantina. “Where’s Rey?” 

 

    “They took her.” Finn said somberly. “I tried to stop Kylo Ren from taking her, but they took off before I could do anything.” 

 

    “Shit.” Poe hissed, wincing in pain a bit as he tried to get back to his feet. 

 

    “Take is easy there, kid.” Han called out as he walked up to him. “Let’s get you over to the ships, you need someone to look at that.” 

 

    “I’m fine.” Poe lied. “Just get me in an X-Wing, I’ll go after them.” 

 

    “You won’t get very far with just you heading into enemy territory, that is if you don’t die on the way out there.” Han grumbled. “Come on, kid, help me lift him up.” Han told Finn now who grabbed Poe on one side while Han grabbed the other and slowly guided Poe through the debris until Poe spotted a few familiar faces among the other Resistance soldiers, one of them being General Leia herself. 

 

    “It’s good to see you still breathing, Dameron.” Leia said with a slight smile as one of the field healers rushed up to him and started trying to clean his wound a bit before wrapping it up to hold him over for now. 

 

    “After the few days I’ve had, I’m surprise I’m still breathing.” Poe commented. 

 

    “Your friend Finn told me.” Leia assured him. 

 

    For the first time ever, Poe saw the general actually hesitate, she wanted to say something but didn’t quite know how to say it. It was strange and foreign for Poe to see, the general always knew what to say and didn’t care what anyone else thought about it, but there she was in front of him, trying to think of how to word what she wanted to ask. 

 

    “He also told me you...found...a girl.” Leia finally stated. 

 

    “More like she found me.” Poe stated. “Rey.” 

 

    “That used to be her nickname.” Leia faintly smiled again, this time with a twinge of sadness in her eyes. “Breha, that’s her real name, I named her after my mother.” 

 

    “I tried to stop him from taking her.” Poe said. “I didn’t want him to take her, to hurt her.” 

 

    “You seem to have quite the bond with her.” Leia observed. 

 

    “...It’s complicated.” Poe didn’t know what else to call his relationship with the former member of the First Order, especially in front of her parents.

 

    “Isn’t it always.” Leia sighed. “But she was here? She was...okay?” 

 

    “She didn’t want to work with the First Order anymore.” Poe reassured her. “She didn’t want to hurt people anymore, she was done with that. She wanted to stop them from finding Luke but...she bargained her life for mine, she promised to go back to them if Kylo would spare me, if I’d been fully conscious at the time I would have never let her go back to them, they’re going to kill her.” 

 

    “We’ll find a way to get her back.” Leia was still searching his eyes, almost as if she were looking for something else out of him, but finally she looked away and over to Finn. “You used to work with them too, where would he take her?” 

 

    “Probably to Starkiller base.” Finn said. “If they have it finished, he’d take her there and pick the next target.” 

  
    “Let’s get back to base, we need to find a way to get to that base, and you,” Leia glared back down at Poe. “You need to get that looked at and healed up.” 


End file.
